On the One Year Anniversary of Esme’s Passing

The man who killed Esme Kenney precisely one year ago this hour is on trial for his life. Meanwhile, there is a memorial service in the Quaker manner this evening at her old church in Cincinnati.

Bereavement is ambiguous and unique to each carrier of grief. Powerlessness and the sense of loss are usually constant companions. Esme’s absence will forever mark the passage of time. She will live forever in the consciousness of her loved ones. The living telling their dead how much they are loved is a communion of the highest spiritual form.

The only question is will her killer get the death penalty? Past deaths cannot be rescinded. Future deaths would be prevented.

I did not know Esme when she was alive. My knowing her now cannot pass for possessing empirical accuracy. But I will say the following. From my distant perspective, you could not pick Esme out in a lineup. There was nothing particularly special at first appearance. She tried rather garish shades of nail polish, for sure, and various types of dangling earrings, but she wore little makeup and let the hair dye of 2007 grow out. She was unpretentious. Hollister and Abercrombie sold little by way of Esme. Simple hoodies and sweatshirts seemed to suffice. She wore the same purple pajamas for years as well as the same white-striped, gray running pants, even on the last day of her life. Though her style of dress was unique and informal, printed tops over t-shirts and jeans and the like, Esme blended right in.

She YouTubed, blogged, skyped, and rocked with ear phones behind outdated styles of sunglasses. Though she didn’t have a cell phone, she certainly knew how to program one. She was known, as most tweens and teens are, as a “tech head.” Through this modern consumer technology, Esme entertained the interests of tween American culture along with her friends. On her YouTube account were Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Denni Lavato, Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, a Twilight trailer spoof, and lots of Ali and AJ. Esme swore by tart and sassy Avril Lavigne. It is said she listened also to JoJo and Fall Out Boy. She was listening to Hilary Duff on her IPod when she ran into her killer. If she had entertained a secret crush on Robert Pattinson or Daniel Radcliffe, then I wouldn’t be surprised.

But what would you say about her after even one conversation with her, one shared moment? Would you say that here is someone special, maybe even a Saint, seamlessly and unconsciously integrating God’s business into her daily interactions with people? Not having met her myself, I still have good reason to wonder.

I can be certain, however, of one thing, the juxtaposition of extremes. This extraordinary young person, lit like an alter candle by the testimonies of others and the stories her pictures and videos tell, makes a claim on me when I think of the improbable and extreme circumstances of her leave-taking from this world. The jury this week will hear every word of her killer’s confession of what happened on that fateful day exactly one year ago. How many vulnerable young women lived in her neighborhood, and what were the chances of them leaving the security of their homes that afternoon? What was said at the time was, “that she did an unusual thing for her: she went for a jog…” What were the chances of anyone being there, let alone him? Never should a violent predator be randomly lurking in the woods near a child's home. "This is a once-in-a-career experience,” Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher had said. “This is not the rule. This is the rare exception to the rule."

This is also shock therapy as higher calling. I am wide awake. Like her namesake in the story by J. D. Salinger, For Esmé – with Love and Squalor, Esme has restored my faculties to keen receptors of what goes on around me and distilleries of precision in separating the important things in life from those that are not.

The dead claim the living and tell us how to live. The loss of her corporeal love teaches us to love on a higher level. It is imperative that we listen and adhere to her sanctions. We are required to work as though this lost loved one is still here with us. It is a call to duty that proves efficacious over time. We send messages to a spirit and get no material answer. There is, however, the compelling assumption that she is there, and we are here, and we must not falter at our task. There is no human horror that the persistent application of love and devotional consciousness cannot transcend.

Esme Kenney will not return to Earth as a 13-year-old girl. Her role now is to impart courage in her invisibility. The brilliant light of her fragile, ephemeral spark so quickly doused must become the enduring afterglow of community love she built with everyone she met. Esme offers us a survival manual, written in her own blood. We are urgently charged to honor her and seek the perpetuation of her gentle kindness.

Special Thanks to James Ellroy