“It’s not the years in your life; it’s the life in your years.”
-Abraham Lincoln

John Green’s best-selling young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars, which was also adapted into a movie, is a love story about a teenage girl with cancer. What you may not know is that it was an homage to a teenage girl, Esther Earl, who struggled with cancer for most of her life.

John Green met Esther due to their shared love of the Harry Potter series, and in spite of their age difference, they became friends. Esther, full of zest for life and frizzy red hair, wrote and read voraciously, campaigned for an organization called The Harry Potter Alliance that uses the message’s from JK Rowling’s best-selling series to fight for social justice causes, and ultimately helped them to win a grant of $250,000.

As her cancer progressed, Esther started thinking a lot about the nature of life and death, and about the legacy she wanted to leave behind. John asked her what, if her birthday were a holiday, she would want it to be about.

“The idea of celebrating friends and family and love,” specifically, “the kinds of love that are too often overlooked in our culture: love among friends and family.”

So today, on what would have been Esther’s 22nd birthday, that’s what I want to talk about.

 

How to Celebrate Esther Day

Celebrating Esther Day is really easy: Tell a friend or family member that you love them.

This seems so simple – why don’t we do it all the time? Well, in short, it’s extraordinarily vulnerable. Most of us don’t have any difficulty telling our partners that we love them, and some of us are fortunate enough to have family and friend relationships where it’s easy, but to a lot of people, this feels very strange. In John Green’s YouTube video about Esther Day, below, you can even watch him writhe with visceral discomfort about telling his brother that he loves him.

But people need to hear that they’re loved. Even if they don’t know how to respond to it, even if it makes them uncomfortable, it’s an important message to deliver.

So in short, think of someone who you love in a non-romantic way who you have a lot of difficulty expressing this to. Then, call them and tell them that you were thinking about how important they are to you and you just want to say, “I love you”.

That’s it.

A few weeks after the video above was posted, Esther died of thyroid cancer. She was 16 years old.

While The Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to Esther, it isn’t about her, but she did leave a legacy behind. Her writings, journals, and drawings were consolidated into a book called “This Star Won’t Go Out”, which won the Goodreads Choice Award in the memoirs category.

After she died, Esther’s parents started a nonprofit, also called “This Star Won’t Go Out” to honor her memory. It helps children with life-threatening cancer and their families. Their website has a lot of information about Esther’s life and legacy.

And lastly, here’s a beautiful video that I think really captures Esther’s authenticity, emotionality, and wisdom beyond her years: