We started seeing a lot of hand-drawn signs around town with the words “Be like Emme.” We were curious what the signs meant, and I searched the community FB page.
It turned out that Emme was a local 10-year-old who recently died. She died, people! I’d understand signs saying “Remember Emme” or “In Loving Memory”, but “Be like Emme”?? In what way should we be like Emme?
“In what way should we be like Emme?”
Just guessing, but probably she died of an atypical childhood disease and the ‘be like’ her is probably about her optimism and/or courage and/or determination in the face of the disease.
A tad misguided but understandable.
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She sounds like she had many good qualities. Given the handmade signs, I expect the “be like” wording is a way of encouraging kids who were her friends to remember her by emulating qualities of hers that they admired.* There’s an Instagram post that says she died of a traumatic brain injury, which suggests an accident of some sort.
*I’m not sure this is a good approach. I once had it offered to me as consolation for the loss of a friend/colleague, when his extroversion and excellent memory for faces/people were what I would miss and could not possibly emulate. But I tried to take it as well meant, though neither helpful nor actionable.
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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