A te Emily, a te.

I know that I can’t be there today to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of an incredible woman, and it is breaking my heart.  But, if I could have – this is what I’d have liked to have said:

Both stubborn, and perhaps, a bit territorial, it took Emily and I a while to become friends.  We knew each other for a long time – but at a distance.  In hindsight, it was probably intimidation that kept me from pushing for friendship at the beginning.  After all – what was not to be intimidated by – she was beautiful, clever, smart, cultured, self-confident, and all my friends laughed at her jokes.  And her jokes were always a lot better than mine.

Ironically, the some of same things that, I think, initially kept us apart ultimately brought us together.  We loved many of the same people, and the same places, and as it turned out, a lot of the same things.

I’m not speaking – strictly – of course, of the Black Eyed Peas, Raleigh, or as I’m pretty sure she nicknamed it – foodstalking.

Now is the part where it would be normal to say something like, “I wish we’d had the opportunity to know each other better,” or “I wish I’d made more effort when we were younger,” and though those things hold true for me – I don’t think Emily and I could have been friends in Chapel Hill.  Not really friends anyway.   It took Raleigh [and Denver], Katie Cozort, and Tim Lehan to foster our friendship.

If I could tell Emily something I never did, it was what an inspiration she was.  When I started to think about leaving the life I’d built in Raleigh and moving to Italy, Emily was the first person I talked to about it.  When I started to feel lost after that decision, she offered me counsel.  After I’d arrived, settled, and began to question my decisions again, she was a resource for me.  Hell, when I thought about taking on Thanksgiving in a foreign country for a large number of people – Emily was the person I went to.  And the gratitude I have for her words of understanding and reassurance is immeasurable.

Thing about Emily is – she did it.  She really did it.  She took everything she had, everything she wanted to be, and everything she wasn’t yet – and she laid it on the table.  She wrote an open letter to the world – “Bring me all that you have – teach me what you can, and I will give you my very best.”

She embodied self-confidence.  She was the kind of woman I would want my daughters to be like.  And so much credit is due to the Balog family for raising such an exceptional woman.

Emily was, at least as far as I could tell – one of the bravest women I’ve ever known.  She didn’t let her fears get the best of her in any situation.  There was nothing she could not do.  She defined courage.

She loved her friends as if they were her family, and her family as if nothing else in the whole world mattered.  She laughed, she danced, she challenged people, she joked, she learned, she shared, she gave, she served, and most of all – she laughed.

So many wonderful things have been said and been written about the amazing woman that Emily was.  I think her mother said best though – as mothers always do – Emily was a supernova.  A star that burns so brightly that it burns itself out. In the last days of her life, Emily’s happiness could be felt on the opposite side of the world.  She was radiating joy – in every photo, every email, and every word she wrote.  She had found what she had been looking for – and she knew it.

We mourn the loss of Emily not just for the lives she had touched, changed, and unquestionably improved.  But today, we also mourn for those who will never have the opportunity to be touched directly by her light.  Instead, it will be our responsibility to carry it forward.

Let us live the way Emily did.  Love those you love with all your heart and all your soul.  Challenge yourself.  Challenge the people around you.  Seek to constantly better yourself.  Serve.  In anyway you can, serve your community.  Serve the world.  Dance.  Drink.  Sing.  Laugh.  Above all, laugh.

My heavy heart is with all of you.

A te, Emily, a te.

Ashton