Jeremy.

I’ve thought a lot about how to address the trauma and immense grief that I and the rest of the YES Abroad cohort has experienced since Jeremy passed away, but none of this pain compares to the void that he’s left behind.

I spent literally all day every day in this country with Jeremy “bitchna/dork” Eller.  We not only went to the same Moroccan high school, but were put in the same class and shared friends. After school, we’d consume ridiculous amounts of food, attend tutoring, French, PICA, and lectures, hang out at cafes or the marina, and walk around. When we were in our separate host families, he would send me dark memes over Snapchat, and crazy, unprecedented texts to our many group chats.

Jeremy became my third brother, and although the pain of the last few weeks is more than any person should ever have to endure, I am beyond grateful that he walked (extremely slowly… we were ALWAYS late to school because of him) into my life.

I’m also grateful for the night before. We were in Azrou, and he sat next to me at dinner. I can’t remember what he was saying exactly (he was ALWAYS roasting me so the insults tend to blend together), but I remember punching him in the arm repeatedly. And I remember that dumb grin he always had on his face when 1) I was hyper and doing dumb stuff or 2) he was making fun of me. Both were happening during dinner that night. We were sitting across from Otmane, and we asked who in our cohort was most likely to be kicked out of the program. The rest of the group decided that it was between me and Jeremy, and the final answer from Otmane was me. This made Jeremy way too happy, so I naturally had to lower his confidence a few notches, which is why he responded by roasting me back, and then I’d punch him, and on and on. And then he’d offer me some of his food because he was always so nice and loving of us but would never admit it.

I miss Jeremy Eller all day every day. I’m not sad all day every day, but I do feel his absence at all times.

I am starting at a new Moroccan high school because I can’t go back to the place where we were “the Americans” together. Where I have a memory of him at every outdoor bench, every hallway, and with every one of our friends. I don’t think I could hear their voices again without remembering how they pronounced his name when they called out to him, asking if he’ll flip his hair just one more time, or if he really ate camel head. (He did, by the way.)

When his blood washed out of my sweatshirt and jeans, I was furious. My therapist says it’s because -- I kid you not, she said this -- my sweatshirt recovered faster than me. I can just picture Jeremy laughing hysterically at this dumbass theory. I can picture him enjoying a lot of the ridiculousness that has been said to us since the accident.

One of the most reassuring parts of this experience has been being told by very devout Muslims that he is absolutely in heaven. I don’t think I believe in heaven or hell (although, fun fact, the night before the accident, we were discussing Dante’s Inferno and Jeremy jokingly said that he’s going to one very specific ring of hell), but these believers think that Jeremy is in heaven even though he wasn’t a Muslim, and I like their confidence.

I stole the following links off of Facebook. They are opportunities to help Jeremy’s family (who is the BEST, by the way) and contribute to a scholarship fund in Jeremy’s memory.

This fund will help them with their unexpected expenses, which have been great: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8jVA7P4d0L?fbclid=IwAR1fsQIqwpF8k5jR2z6PxhtyTYFH4GTsnzaKbro6AoFJ3tRiEyMGDF-52Mg

Any surplus will be transferred to the Jeremy Eller Memorial Scholarship.

This memorial scholarship (donations are tax deductible) will be used to help students experience international study, which was such an important part of Jeremy's life: https://www.wclfoundation.org/donate?org=JeremyEllerMemorialFund&fbclid=IwAR0yS5CW3S7aHWhpDCbvsQx5iQiXSNQwZkv6wc1P0sqBk5eU_00Ukn8TsKc

I’m including what I said at the memorial below because I think the anecdotes are good windows into who he was for those of you who never met him.

Introduction:

Hello everyone, marhaba, and thank you all for coming.

The circumstances that led to our gathering today are the worst that I could possibly imagine. I’ve alternated between being deeply sad that Jeremy is no longer with us and angry that nobody else will ever meet him again, but as we made the list of whom to invite here today, I realized that in a short 3 months in this country, he had already deeply affected so many lives. I also take comfort in knowing that he thoroughly enjoyed living here for the time preceding the accident, hanging out with us “witches,” constantly eating Moroccan food, cursing in Darija, programming with his host brother Ali, and throwing chairs at Otmane.

So again, I want to thank you for coming here today to celebrate the life of one of the strangest human beings I’ve ever met, and most of all, I want to thank you for loving Jeremy. He was a great son, a great brother, and in general, a thoroughly good, genuine person. And I already miss him so much.

Eulogy:

I could say a lot of nice things about Jeremy, but that wasn’t our relationship. He roasted me incessantly, and I roasted him right back. I punched him and he punched me back. And when one of us was sick, we would ask how the other was doing in a very round-about way, so as not to show too much love and concern. But we loved each other and we knew it.

Whenever I burped, I would excuse myself and then Jeremy would say, “you’re not excused, that was awful,” and give the burp a rating out of 10. My burps never got above a 4 and he was super annoying about it.

When he knew that the other American girls and I had stayed out after dark and had to walk home, he would text our group chat, “you turkeys get home okay?” If I didn’t respond within 5-10 minutes, he would text me “bitch” until I did. He worried about us.

He always called me Mandarin because he thought it was funny that my first host family couldn’t remember my name and instead referred to me as a piece of fruit that was coincidentally the same color of my hair. Well, he called me Mandarin and also “bitch.” Both were said lovingly.

We had a lot of routines that we carried out together, like every Friday, we went to Sahbi after school and before our group meeting at Amideast, and we would each get two sandwiches. I would get two sandwich poulet, and he would get one sandwich poulet and one loubnani poulet, which was dumb and basically the same thing. We would start eating as we walked to Amideast — which, mind you, was a 5 minute walk — and he would be finished with both sandwiches in less than a couple minutes. It was ridiculous and I loved it.

It’s no exaggeration when I say that Jeremy was the most comforting aspect of my life abroad. When I was nervous on the way to school, he was right there sitting in the front seat of the taxi, playing with his hair and complaining about having 3 hours of SVT that day. When I was stressed in class because it was hard to make friends or because I’m really not that good at Darija, I’d look around and see him sitting nearby, doodling human hands and skulls. He would look up at me and say, “shnu bghiti,” which means, “what do you want,” and was the exact amount of sympathy that I needed. He was always nearby, ready to insult me or complain about school or tell me that my concerns were stupid and I should really worry less, and I needed him.

He once asked me about my — and I quote — creative outlets, because he had many. He loved learning German and Arabic, playing guitar, drawing, programming, and reading math textbooks. I like creative writing. On multiple occasions, we got into arguments about whether or not he would be allowed to read one of my pieces. He said he wouldn’t judge my writing or laugh at me and I believed him but never got around to picking out a story that he would like. Despite having never read my work, he insisted that I would be a famous writer when I grew up, which was random but very touching. He was so sure of himself, and believed in me more than I deserved.

He was also thoughtful. Even when he was insulting or physically abusing his friends, he always kept their best interest in mind. One day, I was waiting for him to walk to our meeting spot in L’Ocean so we could take a taxi to school, and I realized that I had forgotten to put on deodorant, which was overly stressful. I called him and asked him to pick some up on the way to me, and he said he would bring me a fresh one. I didn’t know what that meant. I hoped he would bring me a fresh one. But it turns out he was bringing me his extra deodorant that he had packed for himself, which he was very serious about possessing in case his other one ran out. He kept telling the other girls — I only learned this recently — that he needed to buy another backup stick of deodorant in case I forgot again, and he was very adamant about this. He cared so much about other people.

We were always asked if we were married or siblings, and explaining that we’re from separate states in the US and didn’t know each other before moving to Africa together is difficult when you don’t speak Darija yet, so we just said siblings. That was our default answer for a while, but then it became true. I didn’t just lose another American, classmate, acquaintance, or even a friend. I lost a member of my family — somebody that I thoroughly loved, saw every day, and have come to depend on — and living in a world without Jeremy is scary, but the kid once told me that he isn’t scared of anything, and maybe he had a point. He had lots of people who loved him, and he was doing what he was passionate about. What did he have to fear?

Although I would do anything to change the circumstances, I have really enjoyed getting to know Jeremy’s mom, dad, and brother Kyle, who have shaped and loved the boy that we are all so fortunate to have known.

Going forward, it’s easy to think of the crazy stories he told, the comfort he brought, the memes he sent, and the doodles he drew when he really should have been listening — it’s easy to think of these things and become sad that we will never experience that again. That we will never experience him again. But he was so happy, touched lives around the world, and was surrounded by people who loved him until the very last second. And now he is safely resting in heaven because if anybody deserved to go there, it’s Jeremy Eller. [End of speech.]

I will be staying in Morocco (which was not my original plan… I was #outtahere when I heard the definite news) and continuing my life here, despite how everything has changed. Jeremy’s parents said to me, before they returned to the US, “you can handle more than you think you can,” and that stuck with me. So I’m going to continue studying the language that I love in the culture that I love with the people that I love until the pain turns into fond memories. And I’m never ever going to forget Jeremy Eller. That dumb bitch.