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?
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“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.
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