I love you, Hank. Happy Esther Day.

good morning Hank it's Thursday August 3rd it's Esther day and I love you yesterday is a holiday founded by Esther Earl our friend and a long time nerdfighter who died of cancer in 2010 when she was 16. and she wanted yesterday her holiday to be about the other kinds of love the love that we don't celebrate on Valentine's Day love between family and friends and especially taking the time to say I love you when it's hard to say it now I don't want to flatter myself and say that I was in any way involved with the creation of yesterday but I do suspect that part of what Esther was thinking was my gosh it's hard for these two nerds to say I love you to each other and so I'm gonna start a holiday where they have to do it at least once a year but it has been hard over the years like I'm about to confess something super big brothery and embarrassing but sometimes when we were like just out of college or you were still in college and we would have like our occasional once a year or once every six month phone call we don't have these great phone calls we talk for like 45 minutes we'd have like broad ranging conversations about all kinds of things and then when it came time to hang up I would want to say I love you and I wouldn't and then I would just be like all right well take care and then you'd hang up and then and then after we hung up I I would say I love you but now I'm functionally forced to say it to you once a year and actually we have been saying I love you more in private haven't we Hank because this year's yesterday uh there's no two ways about it it's different your cancer diagnosis has reminded us that life is fragile and also that we are very fortunate to be in life with the people we're in it with it's also helped me to remember the cost of not saying I love you I need the people in my life to know that I love them and I need to know that I am loved Esther saw that at 16 better than I did in 2010 and so she gave us the gift of this holiday and this opportunity to tell the people in our lives we care about that we care about them but I don't just love you Hank I also really deeply admire you there's a lot of gifts that have been given to me in my life but very few of them stack up with the one that I received on May 5th 1980 I'm gonna I'm gonna try a different way look I've always known that Cancer Sucks our dad had cancer twice when we were little it had a huge impact on his life on our lives uh I I've seen cancer up close in in friends and and in the lives of of people like Esther and her family uh so I I didn't need you to get cancer to know that Cancer Sucks uh but I have I have been reminded Anew how difficult it is for the person living with cancer for the people supporting them when our structures our societal structures are not set up to support patients and their families effectively and after Esther died her family set up a charity called this star won't go out that provides direct financial support to families of kids living with cancer and I understand better than ever just how much difference supporting this star won't go out can make in the lives of those families because like Hank we don't need money that's not a source of stress it wasn't a big deal for you you to be able to leave your job on a moment's notice for an indefinite period of time but for the vast majority of people all of that and so much more isn't easy this star won't go out provides such an essential service for families like that so in addition to encouraging you to say I love you to the people in your life you love especially when it's hard I encourage you to check out this star won't go out and donate if you can tswgo.org link in the doobly-doo also Hank this summer has sucked and I have this intense need to add but to the end of every negative sentence like this summer has sucked but I've gotten closer to my brother that's true but but there are better ways where we could have gotten closer you know or this summer has sucked but I learned a lot which is also true you do learn a lot when you get promoted from unpaid social media intern to Temporary and reluctant CEO I would have rather learned those lessons in a different way though but here's a but I can feel good about nope here's a butt I can get behind definitely not um all right here's a butt that works for me no frick I'm just gonna say it instead of introing it this summer has sucked massively but I have seen up close how much love matters how much the love of your colleagues at dftba and complexly matters how much the love of your spouse and your kid matters how much the love of your family and your friends matter what we really need in this world and all in the end we can really give each other is accompaniment and attention to walk with each other and to listen to each other so that none of us has to go through everything that we will have to go through alone and so I've been reminded just how much all those kinds of Love matter and how wise Esther was at the age of 16 to start of all holidays this one Hank I love you so much happy yesterday I will see you tomorrow

Channel: vlogbrothers

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Id: T-bpQ-rx4pU

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023