I want to do better for her. I want to tell these stories each completely, with pictures and links (to posts I have to find and move). I might still get to that, but I doubt it will be soon. Meanwhile, here are the fragments I jotted down while putting my daughter to bed the next evening, thinking I needed to rush, that they were to inform the minister about what kind of person she was. Instead, it was read aloud as her eulogy, with my advance permission. I suppose before I improve it, I should publish it as written...
I think people should know how passionate Em was in all her interests. When she wanted to know about something, she always went for depth, total subject matter mastery. And then she would ask questions that were just so insightful and made it so clear that she had grasped the subject so completely. It was amazing. Gardening, Farming, religion, raising children, whatever caught her interest.
We had the best road trips. She wouldn't listen to a whole song and had that CD changer in the trunk so we could listen to a new song every thirty seconds for an hour at a go. She and Sarah took me to the hot springs for my bachelorette party. We chose not to tell Sarah that it was going to involve fifteen miles on a one-lane dirt road in the mountains in the dark. She took it pretty well when that happened. We camped. We had to hike a mile and ford a river to get the pools. And then it was just us and a sixty year old naked man in the pools. It was so beautiful we all filled our cameras. It really was the best trip.
And then for a second run up to the wedding, we went to a casino and played Bingo until dawn.
We went on a weekend trip to see the monastery at Gesthamane and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth convent. We went to the Grand Canyon and Sedona and Napa and Chicago and all over Kentucky. We went to Oak Creek Canyon just to take our dogs swimming. We had the best adventures.
Our "if it bothers you, you do something about it" mutual housekeeping agreement horrified everyone around us, but we honestly never had a housework related disagreement while we lived together. We even agreed that everyone else failed to see the wisdom in our plan.
Emily took a Greyhound bus to Arizona, which takes about 48 hours, and stayed with me for an entire month because I was having a hard time adjusting to my move. That's what a great friend she was.
We had fun. We had so much fun.