"Our worst fear is not that we
are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask
ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God; your playing
small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We
are born to manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in
some of us; it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated
from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandela
The Beginning
Emily and I became friends through one of her third-grade teachers, who then became my fifth-grade teacher in Dallas, Texas. Emily, who lived in Lexington, Kentucky, wrote a letter to Mrs. Davis in the spring of that year, asking for a pen pal, and I said "me! me!" I wrote to her, and she wrote back; however, that first letter never reached me. Luckily Emily wrote a second time, and that letter did find me, and so began our nine-year friendship.
Emily and I were pen pals, but we were also much more than pen pals. We started out by writing about our families, our pets, and our interests. However, both of us liked to write and expressed ourselves well through the written word, so we also wrote about our hopes and our fears and our mistakes.
The Middle
I've
never had an argument with Emily, because I've never had the opportunity.
I've only visited her twice in my lifetime. Once was when I and my
mother were coming back from visiting my brother in Pittsburgh, and we
managed a five-hour layover in Lexington. My mother and I spent the
afternoon with Emily and her mother, and it was wonderful. We felt
oddly awkward at first, but after a few minutes it was like we'd been together
forever. We must have been 14 or 15 at this time.
In
July of 1998 I went to Lexington to visit Emily, more on a whim than anything
else. I didn't have anything else to do, and my family wasn't going
on vacation that summer, so I wanted to go somewhere. I spent a whole
week in Emily's company and enjoyed every minute. She took me to
meet her best friends and her favorite places. One time, we spent
a highly amusing two hours after midnight in a CVS pharmacy, looking at
the cosmetics and fake nails and playing with the toys. We ended
up buying plastic nails and nail glue, and when we got back to Emily's
house I did her nails and painted them silver. They actually looked
really good.
I wish I could say more about our friendship, and Emily's life, but this page is not a biography. It's a testament to the beautiful soul of my dearest and oldest friend. She was the most beautiful, affectionate, generous, passionate, sensitive, expressive person I have ever known. Unfortunately, I cannot share what made her so, because she chose not to share with the public much of what she let me know. This is not to say that I know everything, because I don't. Her life is also her friends' life, and she was as faithful to them, in not telling their secrets, as I must be to her. Of her life, I only know what she showed me, but that is enough.
Emily was the kind of person who would send, as a Christmas present, three used poetry anthologies wrapped in Hanukkah paper and with a "Happy Winter Solstice" card. That gift is "uniquely her." I have so many things in my life, tactile as well as insubstantial, that she gave to me, or that remind me of her.
Emily
was a poet. I am no judge of poetry and have no idea how good she
was. She has been writing poetry for as long as I've known her, and
quite possibly the verses she wrote back then are little more than teenage
angsty drivel (albeit better teenage angsty drivel than mine, I must say).
However, given time to develop and mature and grow, she could have been
a Chaucer or a Dickinson.
At the least, she would have been my friend for more than a mere nine years.
Emily had a hard life. She made a lot of mistakes, and she went through a lot of troubles that I'm glad I didn't share, except by being her friend. It's as if because she made those mistakes, I don't have to. I admire her tremendously for living her misfortunes, and for coming out the other side. I also know that she admired me, for being more steadfast and not making some of the choices that she did. We showed each other different, wonderful ways to live.
I wish I could tell her about my life now. I have a wonderful boyfriend, and I know that Emily would be so happy for me if she knew. Not that other people aren't, but Emily had the gift of listening and understanding. I don't think I completely understood her when she was alive; our realms of experience were too different. And now she is gone where I cannot follow. I will never know what she went through.
The End
Emily was spending this semester in Costa Rica on co-op
from Antioch College. She was in love with Costa Rica.
One weekend, eight days before her twentieth birthday,
she and two female friends rented a cabin at the
beach, and Emily Howell and Emily Eagen went
to a bar for the evening, but they never came back.
They were found in the morning
by the side of the highway
and had evidently been kidnapped
and executed.
On Thursday, March 23 I flew from Massachusetts to Lexington, KY to attend the memorial service for Emily. The service was very non-traditional, which was how Emily wanted it. There were candles around her urn, and at one point Emily's friends and family got up and lighted the candles. (I have the candle I lit; it's up in my room, although we're not supposed to have candles in the dorms. I don't care.) The service wasn't particularly moving for me, I think, but afterwards I stood and looked at her picture and her urn, and I cried. (I looked afterwards, and there was a small puddle where I had been standing.) People kept on coming by and trying to comfort me, but I didn't want to be comforted. There's a certain masochistic pleasure in being intensely miserable, and in wearing black for mourning like I've been doing since Sunday.
I saw again Emily's family and friends whom I had met before, and I met some whom I had never before seen. It was an odd feeling to be there, because I recognized some people from pictures and letters and felt as though I knew them. They knew me, though. Courtney, one of Emily's best friends, was extremely friendly and understanding. She asked me if I would be her pen pal, and I said I would. She came and stood next to me when I was crying, but she didn't attempt to comfort me. She understood.
Lance, Emily's ex-boyfriend (but constant soulmate), was in agony. I felt for him, but I think the only thing I could do for him was to leave him alone, which I did. However, I told him that Emily loved him (which he knew, I'm sure, but I hope it helped him as much as it helped me when Courtney told it to me), and that she talked about him in every letter she sent to me (which, if not literally true, felt true). I know she really loved Lance. And I love her, so I feel a strange but powerful connection to him, and to her other friends in a similar but less extreme manner.
Emily's mother gave me a great gift; she told me that I probably saved Emily's life seven years ago by (quite accidentally, as it happened) revealing to Emily's mother that she was depressed and suicidal. After that, Emily got treatment (in the form of medication, and some therapy later), and she never did attempt suicide.
Going to Emily's hometown and her memorial service was powerful for me; however, I miss her more than ever, because I kept on expecting her to walk through the door, and it's painful to realize that she never will.
In July 2000, tears still crawl down my face as I revise this page.
One of the lasting effects of Emily's death on me is a paranoia about people close to my heart but far away geographically. I'm afraid that something will happen to them, and I won't know. When Emily died, not only was she in Costa Rica, but I was on spring break in France at the time. My father, who found out about it in the newspaper, had no way of contacting me until I got back to the United States; he told me over the phone. All in all, as a way to find out, it could definitely be improved. The point is, now I've got a fear that I didn't have before.
Emily, I have wept for you. Occasionally, I still weep. It is strange to lose you, because in a way, I still have everything of you that I ever had. I have every single one of the letters that you sent to me, in Dallas and in France and in Massachusetts, and now I also have the letters that I sent to you. I can read them, and nine years of you are with me. All I have lost is the possibility of knowing more of you.
We were supposed to grow up together, have children together, and become old together. Even though we were always far apart, we were close in spite of distance. No matter where I went, you were with me, because our friendship didn't depend on physical proximity. And even now, my dearest Emily, I won't let you go. This is a letter to you, because I can still write letters. And you never wrote back much, anyway, the past few years. :-)
I weep not for your death, but for the way you died. There is a dreadful irony in the fact that you, who were always active against violence towards women and others, died in such a fashion. I cannot imagine how you felt. I cannot go where you have gone; I never could.
But I will remember you. I will take up the causes you proclaimed. In life you tried to get me involved; in your memory, I can do nothing less.
Further Links:
News articles from the Lexington
Herald-Leader (Kentucky)
Wednesday, March 15: Lexington
woman shot, killed at 19 in Costa Rica
Thursday, March 16: Police
hunt man seen with two before they vanished
Thursday, March 16: Costa
Rican paradise deadly
Friday, March 17: Costa
Rica residents fear killings hurt image
Friday, March 17: School
remembers, mourns slain student
Saturday, March 18: Family
meets with investigators of slaying
Sunday, March 19: Costa
Ricans show sympathy for slain Americans
Tuesday, March 21: Woman's
body flown home
Friday, March 24: Friends,
family mourn Emily Howell
Monday, March 27: Two
suspects arrested in Costa Rica killings
Tuesday, March 28: Costa
Rica police 'close to wrapping up' case
Friday, March 31: Costa
Rican police had let suspects go twice
I love you, Emily.
"You have
always been there for me and brought to my life the gift of friendship.
Thank you
for sharing all that is uniquely you."