March 7, 2009 CINCINNATI Thirteen-year-old Esme Louise Kenney was beaten, abducted, molested, strangled, and then partially burned by a convicted murderer and sex offender while jogging across the street from her home. Her life was brutally extinguished but not her light. It will shine for an eternity. The following is a photo essay, arranged in chronological order, of this remarkable girl’s life.
You can read further about Esme at the following posts contained in this blog: Dreams of Passion Wide Awake; The Power of Esme; Absolution Under a Full Winter Moon; The Self-Reciprocating Power of Happiness; On the One-Year Anniversary of Esme's Passing; Strength Made Perfect in Weakness; Stacked Spirals of Stardust; Coming Full Circle for Esme, Little Saint of Cincinnati, with Love and Squalor
Esme Louise Kenney is the beloved daughter of Tom Kenney and Lisa Siders-Kenney, sister of Brian, Meghan and Frances, loving cousin, niece, aunt and friend, talented cellist, artist, boating enthusiast, storyteller, caregiver, and explorer.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and summer resident of Sioux Narrows, Ontario, she is deeply missed by uncountable friends and relatives across the globe who will always remember the spirit, warmth and love she gave to everybody she knew.
Spring, 2003
July, 2003
Seven-year-old Esme helps facilitate at the wedding of her sister Franny on Whidbey Island. Her piquant and coquettish expression indicates perhaps that she relished her role in the bridal troupe.
While still on Whidbey Island, Esme offers a clam to the photographer along the shoreline, appearing exuberant with her find. Esme was a kid perfectly content at play!
Esme appears completely at peace in her embrace of her mom.
This numinous picture is perhaps the most important ever taken of Esme. It appears ethereal and saintly, like those seen printed on Bible book-markers. When magnified, her image is slightly out of focus, rendering a spirit-like quality. Esme is raising her eyes toward a Cereus flower, which blooms only at night once a summer. The flower could symbolize heaven. It makes me think that Esme is receiving a blessing from heaven. What is especially poignant is the exposition of her throat, the object of strangulation. So, to me, Esme’s throat is receiving the blessing. I think this picture is a prescient sign indicating the manner of her martyrdom and her subsequent sainthood. After this photo was taken, Esme and her mom built a fire and stayed up with the flower into the night.
This picture at the summer cabin in Canada displays the reciprocal love between Esme and the members of her family. What a delightful display of the playful nature of this love!
There are many pictures of the “doting aunt” Esme. This one captures very artistically the warm and loving affection she always showed her nephews and nieces.
Esme writes in her first blog, “I'm pretty smart and friendly. I love my family.” What a perfect caption for this first Internet picture of Esme! It would have been even better to put this expression into a cartoon dialogue balloon and superimpose it onto the picture. Arms akimbo, with self-assured imperturbability and aplomb, she seems to be captured at the moment of saying just that!
This is the fine portrait on the commemorative placard given out at Esme’s memorial service. On it is the eulogium, “sister :: daughter :: friend :: family connection-maker :: communicator :: musician :: poet :: music lover :: fish catcher :: boat driver :: cook :: water-skier :: dress-up queen :: secret agent (shhh) :: babysitter :: tech-head :: learner :: enthusiastic light-bringer :: smile-giver :: our best family girl”
This picture, taken of Esme while she helps paint Easter eggs during a visit to her aunt who is ill in Cleveland, effectively captures the essence of her soul. In it she is the radiant jewel with a clean conscience. She is without the slightest hint of guile. She is a sparkle of purity and innocence. Put succinctly, this is the image of a saint.
This is the signet emblem for Lux Aeterna, the site that commemorates Esme’s life. The lighting is superb, eternal. The caring posture and careful handling of the chick indicate her love for innocent, helpless living things, with the exception of daddy long legs! The explosion of light and love predicted by her parents in her passing is reciprocating a love for innocent, helpless Esme.
Esme was a summer resident of Sioux Narrows, Ontario where she stayed with family in a cabin on a lake. She had just learned to water-ski during her last visit.
Esme holds her niece Harper. They were the best of friends. Her cousin’s children “delighted in her, and she in them…” Esme’s last entry in her blog, The esme Show is, as follows.
“TODDLERS??? HELP!!!!!!!!!
By the title some people may think I hate toddlers. But truth be told I actually love them!!! I think they are adorable, sweet and cuddly. The two Toddlers I am talking about are named Harper and Campbell…There is always a list of things I do whenever I see these two. We have to: Sing the "Who likes popcorn?" song, give loads of piggy back rides, play with Lego's and Barbie's, play hide and seek, and chase them around. Very long list, isn't it? And I am very tired by the end of the day. Thankfully, once I tire them out they are pretty tame. Right now I have a very tired four year old on my lap. YIKES!!!!! I take that back. Make that a very hyper four year old.”
Esme wears a mask while visiting her sister Frannie’s family in Washington State. So I found myself writing, “God tried on the face mask of Esme and found it a perfect fit.” Taking the analogy further, we need a face, a holy mask, to put on God who remains otherwise difficult to see. Esme is such a face, a holy mask with which to see God. We too might choose to wear this mask. Choosing Esme’s way, a gentle and kind way, seeing through her mask and being seen as like her, would free us from the constraints of our lesser choices.
This picture, taken while celebrating her birthday, captures Esme’s delight in being with her friends. She puts the effect best herself in typical tween fashion, “I am now officially 12 years old. On this day 12 years ago I was as big as my niece Sonja, give or take some inches!!!! Tomorrow at 1:00 I will be on Fountain Square, ice skating with my friends. I'll fall and get up again because I'm 12!!!!!!!! Happy birthday to me!!!!!!!!!!”
Esme visits kinfolk on her mom Lisa’s side of the family in Montana. The photograph seems taken from an article in National Geographic that investigates how American families gather in ways that solidify community. It displays Esme’s signature smile, with lips pressed together. It shows too Esme’s love for her mother and the respect she showed her by being best of friends. Most of all it radiates Esme’s grace and beauty.
This photograph completes a pair. Now Lisa gets to reciprocate. This is the look of the proudest of moms. Esme can’t help but smile naturally and authentically in response to her mom’s demonstration of pride and affection.
August 5, 2008
Esme practices cello at the summer cabin. She exhibited extraordinary talent as a musician, double-majoring in cello and voice at the Cincinnati School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
This picture of Esme and nephew Cam blueberry picking at the summer cabin in Canada hints at the direction of Esme’s maturation. She is not yet a teenager, but appears as a poised young adult.
This customized portrait captures Esme’s pure heart and unique style in apparel. An 8th grader who sang with Esme in a school choir said her friend, “… had a style of her own that extended to clothing and her sense of humor…”
October 31, 2008
Sisters Frannie and Meghan want to know Esme’s changes in her last six months. What I can offer is the following. Young teens are prone to brooding, such as seen in this photograph taken last Halloween. They feign maturity that is, in reality, merely sophistication. They are of course beginning to hold authority in suspicion as they try to pull away from it. And they seek outlets for hormone-induced restless energy through music. I am a teacher of students just like her in a similar arts academy in Chicago. To me this and other pictures are quite telling. Her apparent mood swings and changing complexion, in both facial skin and facial expression, illustrate how she was indeed beginning to change rapidly, mercilessly. She appears to have been quite normally in the inaugural throes of adolescence, especially the kind experienced by the artistic and creative.
This is the most poignant picture of Esme, taken on the day of her abduction and murder. A self- portrait, it appears she was alone in her room when she took it. It captures a strange intensity in her bearing, which, along with her isolation, seems to forebode the terrifying and lonely passion of her passing.
