Thank you for listening to me today. This is not a formal ceremony, but knowing my professional background, I hope will understand that I believe that speaking has power, and that I need to speak these words about Ana aloud to you. This is Ana’s day, and I will tell you that I can’t stop thinking about her and if I could I would tell her life story today. Ana would be the first to hide her eyes in embarrassment at the prospect of that, but talking about her will be cathartic for me, even though this is the most nervous I have ever been before speaking in front of people. I probably won’t make it through without crying, so please forgive me and thank you for indulging me.

I am going to talk about Ana and what we have been through, but I want to start by thanking our dear family and all our precious friends for everything about today. I realize some people had travel plans for the eclipse long ago but I appreciate immensely you all being here. Many of you know we contemplated moving... Read more to Minnesota for Ana’s care and Leah’s career. It was an agonizing decision due to cost-of-living considerations, but I finally realized that we needed to be near all of you. I am grateful to my mom and dad for driving here many times from Mesa and just sitting with me when I otherwise would have been alone, and to my sister Amber for travelling here repeatedly from Wyoming to be with us. My niece, Rayah, for keeping in touch with Ana and keeping her spirits up. To the rest of my Wyoming family: Bill, Tyson, Kallyanna and Matthew for putting everything else on hold to make the trek down here. To Leah’s mom, Laurie, for being there for Evander and all her years of love for her adopted granddaughter. I am so happy to see Leah’s dad, Emmet and Ana’s other adoptive grandmother, Nana Leeanne; and Leah’s family- Matthew, Coley, Nichole and Robert for coming here from California and proving the strength of family. My best friend, Kip, for whom I could not even recount the ways he has enriched our lives. Kip, and his wonderful wife Lauren, and our dear friend Aaron, and their children Genevieve and Vaughn, and all of Kip’s family who have always considered us one of their own, first just me since college, and then eventually my own family as well. My old college and Air Force buddy Craig is here from the east coast to support us. Of course, Ana’s friends, especially Chevy, Ashley, Penny, Gaby, who have shown incredible compassion, strength and support these many months, and all my Payson friends who came down the mountain, for whose friendship I consider myself very fortunate, and Leah’s new work family for rallying around her.

Thank you very much to everyone who posted messages and photos on Ana’s memorial site, and especially for the generous donations to help continue the research to fight cancer and to care for those have struggle with it. I have been overwhelmed with respect and gratitude for the professionals who have helped us, some who are here today. And thank you to everyone who provided us with the beautiful flowers we are enjoying today.

Now I get to tell you about Ana. I will only say a few things about Ana’s early childhood, which was tumultuous. Ana was a little girl shifting between two worlds since she was born. For those not versed in the infamous lore, I divorced Ana’s bio mom before Ana was even a year old. A bitter struggle for her upbringing ensued during her earliest years as I navigated the family law system in California. For my part, all Ana saw was a quiet struggle, with tears choked back, frequent tips and stiff, strained exchanges. Until she left California with me at age six, Ana did not know a world in which mommies and daddies live together and love each other. I imagine all she could think was “which one am I supposed to love?” She was my purpose, my fundamental mission in life, and I fought hard to be in her life. It seemed as if it was just her and me against the world for a while, until we found the woman who would become her real mother in the fullest sense of the word.

What else can I tell you about Ana that you don’t already know? Some of you may know some things. There is plenty about her that I will never know. But I do know that she was fiercely independent, bucked some trends but not others, confident in her beliefs but not in her abilities. In recent years she struggled against her own mind, highly perceptive, to the point that she felt she perceived too much. Her bio mom inspired in Ana a fascination with abnormal psychology. Ana reveled in her eccentricities: feet and even numbers were bad; baggy Goodwill clothing was good. Like me, she enjoyed art but disliked her own work. She loved pickled beets, and our traditional Norwegian potato balls at Christmas time, and sushi and boba tea. Believe it or not she used to love Tinkerbell and My Little Pony and her American Girl doll. She loved the smart humor of Phineas and Ferb, and so did I. She grew into a snarky teen who didn’t like people who are fad followers, or those who are ignorant of the world outside their social bubble, or who are cognitively inflexible. She loved misfits and quiet people, as well as gregarious and inappropriate, yet sharp-witted people. Ana’s wit would cut to your core. Her music taste was eclectic and sacred to her. Most of it I don’t care for, as is expected for a father, but we mutually admired a few artist s here and there, culminating in our Tame Impala concert in Brooklyn, New York on her 17th birthday, March 14th 2022. The poster is framed on her bedroom wall now. Ana loved being smart; her participation in Gail Wade’s Academic Team in Middle School made me very proud. She enjoyed comedian John Mulaney, llamas and narwhals. She was a tutor, a Potterhead, an ice skater, an erstwhile musician, and an amateur tattoo artist. There is so much more I could say, and so much more that could have been.

On 12 December 2022, when she was just 17, we learned that Ana would never grow old. I didn’t think that at the time, and I tried to deny or ignore that inevitability for most of the time since then, hoping that at some point a revolutionary medical treatment would save her. I read the prognosis and the survival statistics and thought “she could be the outlier, the 5%.” But the news meant something else to Ana. When we learned of the tumor that day, Ana fell into a deep, peaceful sleep there in the emergency room bed, her first moment of rest and calm after months of headaches, nausea, and mental anguish. The burden of her mental and physical pain had been lifted from her mind, and placed on that tumor. That was immediate relief for her, and is perhaps her greatest triumph over a randomly unkind biology. I have struggled to find such strength as hers.

As a teenager, Ana has always had a dark sense of humor, and was quite cavalier about her tumor in the early days of her diagnosis. She embraced the “fuck cancer” sentiment on the gifts she received. The battery pack for her electrical array device on her head, she called it her “cancer purse.” I will never know the morbid things she and her friends probably discussed back then, but that’s OK. Eventually, as her capacity for speech and cognition diminished, Ana’s denouncements of all things unfair, unpleasant, and irritating, as well as just about anything else, became reduced to one powerful, all-encompassing, easy to say word: “lame.”

I perceive our bodies are tethers which bind us to each other and to our world. For all of us, those tethers either fray over time until they fail, or they are suddenly cut. I have pondered over many months which is worse for those of us left behind. I still don’t know. So many people suffer sudden, terrible ends, but I mourned the loss of my daughter for 15 months before she left us. Even so, until her last day, March 18th, I was always comforted by the fact that she was still here with us, despite how tragic it was. Then as the last few strands gave way to Ana’s soul flying free, I tried to feel some relief, and even some joy for her. But I can’t, and I am still struggling with that. Ana’s consciousness has become separated from us. It slowly slipped the grasp of her body over the past year, and now it is free. Her body failed her, as will all of ours eventually, but weighed against an entire lifetime of possibility, it happened too quickly, and too early. I will never reconcile with that; it will sit in my chest like a stone for the rest of my life. But I do believe that what her spirit lacks in the wisdom of age, it accounts for by being unbroken by the weight of the world. We will always remember her in her youth.

Now Ana has rejoined the collective consciousness of the universe. Many people call it God. Whether it is sentient and omnipotent, or it is a pervasive, omnipresent field of interconnected energy, I know that the energy that is Ana remains, for according to the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy can never be destroyed, it just changes form. For a brief cosmic moment, we captured Ana’s energy into her body, we raised and nurtured her, we experienced the world together, fraught with painful trials, and uplifted with simple joys with family and friends. Now her energy is released once again, and we who knew and loved her will always recognize its presence around us. It is not gone.

A poet named Henry Van Dyke wrote about death as a ship disappearing over the horizon, saying: “Then, someone at my side says There, she is gone! Gone where? Gone from my sight. That is all.”
I will end with this: I mentioned how Ana was private and didn’t like sharing the music she liked with very many others. One of those rare songs Ana shared her enjoyment with us was “Vienna,” by Billy Joel. The refrain is “when will you realize Vienna waits for you.” She always wanted to travel, so that’s where I imagine her spirit has gone. Vienna waited for her, and now she’s there, in whatever way she wants that to be, gone from my sight, but that is all. And you are all here, at the end of her journey on Earth, to see her off, and for that I am humbled, and eternally grateful. Read less

Thank you for listening to me today. This is not a formal ceremony, but knowing my professional background, I hope will understand that I believe that speaking has power, and that I need to speak these words about Ana aloud to you. This is Ana’s day, and I will tell you that I can’t stop thinking about her and if I could I would tell her life story today. Ana would be the first to hide her eyes in embarrassment at the prospect of that, but talking about her will be cathartic for me, even though... Read more this is the most nervous I have ever been before speaking in front of people. I probably won’t make it through without crying, so please forgive me and thank you for indulging me.

I am going to talk about Ana and what we have been through, but I want to start by thanking our dear family and all our precious friends for everything about today. I realize some people had travel plans for the eclipse long ago but I appreciate immensely you all being here. Many of you know we contemplated moving to Minnesota for Ana’s care and Leah’s career. It was an agonizing decision due to cost-of-living considerations, but I finally realized that we needed to be near all of you. I am grateful to my mom and dad for driving here many times from Mesa and just sitting with me when I otherwise would have been alone, and to my sister Amber for travelling here repeatedly from Wyoming to be with us. My niece, Rayah, for keeping in touch with Ana and keeping her spirits up. To the rest of my Wyoming family: Bill, Tyson, Kallyanna and Matthew for putting everything else on hold to make the trek down here. To Leah’s mom, Laurie, for being there for Evander and all her years of love for her adopted granddaughter. I am so happy to see Leah’s dad, Emmet and Ana’s other adoptive grandmother, Nana Leeanne; and Leah’s family- Matthew, Coley, Nichole and Robert for coming here from California and proving the strength of family. My best friend, Kip, for whom I could not even recount the ways he has enriched our lives. Kip, and his wonderful wife Lauren, and our dear friend Aaron, and their children Genevieve and Vaughn, and all of Kip’s family who have always considered us one of their own, first just me since college, and then eventually my own family as well. My old college and Air Force buddy Craig is here from the east coast to support us. Of course, Ana’s friends, especially Chevy, Ashley, Penny, Gaby, who have shown incredible compassion, strength and support these many months, and all my Payson friends who came down the mountain, for whose friendship I consider myself very fortunate, and Leah’s new work family for rallying around her.

Thank you very much to everyone who posted messages and photos on Ana’s memorial site, and especially for the generous donations to help continue the research to fight cancer and to care for those have struggle with it. I have been overwhelmed with respect and gratitude for the professionals who have helped us, some who are here today. And thank you to everyone who provided us with the beautiful flowers we are enjoying today.

Now I get to tell you about Ana. I will only say a few things about Ana’s early childhood, which was tumultuous. Ana was a little girl shifting between two worlds since she was born. For those not versed in the infamous lore, I divorced Ana’s bio mom before Ana was even a year old. A bitter struggle for her upbringing ensued during her earliest years as I navigated the family law system in California. For my part, all Ana saw was a quiet struggle, with tears choked back, frequent tips and stiff, strained exchanges. Until she left California with me at age six, Ana did not know a world in which mommies and daddies live together and love each other. I imagine all she could think was “which one am I supposed to love?” She was my purpose, my fundamental mission in life, and I fought hard to be in her life. It seemed as if it was just her and me against the world for a while, until we found the woman who would become her real mother in the fullest sense of the word.

What else can I tell you about Ana that you don’t already know? Some of you may know some things. There is plenty about her that I will never know. But I do know that she was fiercely independent, bucked some trends but not others, confident in her beliefs but not in her abilities. In recent years she struggled against her own mind, highly perceptive, to the point that she felt she perceived too much. Her bio mom inspired in Ana a fascination with abnormal psychology. Ana reveled in her eccentricities: feet and even numbers were bad; baggy Goodwill clothing was good. Like me, she enjoyed art but disliked her own work. She loved pickled beets, and our traditional Norwegian potato balls at Christmas time, and sushi and boba tea. Believe it or not she used to love Tinkerbell and My Little Pony and her American Girl doll. She loved the smart humor of Phineas and Ferb, and so did I. She grew into a snarky teen who didn’t like people who are fad followers, or those who are ignorant of the world outside their social bubble, or who are cognitively inflexible. She loved misfits and quiet people, as well as gregarious and inappropriate, yet sharp-witted people. Ana’s wit would cut to your core. Her music taste was eclectic and sacred to her. Most of it I don’t care for, as is expected for a father, but we mutually admired a few artist s here and there, culminating in our Tame Impala concert in Brooklyn, New York on her 17th birthday, March 14th 2022. The poster is framed on her bedroom wall now. Ana loved being smart; her participation in Gail Wade’s Academic Team in Middle School made me very proud. She enjoyed comedian John Mulaney, llamas and narwhals. She was a tutor, a Potterhead, an ice skater, an erstwhile musician, and an amateur tattoo artist. There is so much more I could say, and so much more that could have been.

On 12 December 2022, when she was just 17, we learned that Ana would never grow old. I didn’t think that at the time, and I tried to deny or ignore that inevitability for most of the time since then, hoping that at some point a revolutionary medical treatment would save her. I read the prognosis and the survival statistics and thought “she could be the outlier, the 5%.” But the news meant something else to Ana. When we learned of the tumor that day, Ana fell into a deep, peaceful sleep there in the emergency room bed, her first moment of rest and calm after months of headaches, nausea, and mental anguish. The burden of her mental and physical pain had been lifted from her mind, and placed on that tumor. That was immediate relief for her, and is perhaps her greatest triumph over a randomly unkind biology. I have struggled to find such strength as hers.

As a teenager, Ana has always had a dark sense of humor, and was quite cavalier about her tumor in the early days of her diagnosis. She embraced the “fuck cancer” sentiment on the gifts she received. The battery pack for her electrical array device on her head, she called it her “cancer purse.” I will never know the morbid things she and her friends probably discussed back then, but that’s OK. Eventually, as her capacity for speech and cognition diminished, Ana’s denouncements of all things unfair, unpleasant, and irritating, as well as just about anything else, became reduced to one powerful, all-encompassing, easy to say word: “lame.”

I perceive our bodies are tethers which bind us to each other and to our world. For all of us, those tethers either fray over time until they fail, or they are suddenly cut. I have pondered over many months which is worse for those of us left behind. I still don’t know. So many people suffer sudden, terrible ends, but I mourned the loss of my daughter for 15 months before she left us. Even so, until her last day, March 18th, I was always comforted by the fact that she was still here with us, despite how tragic it was. Then as the last few strands gave way to Ana’s soul flying free, I tried to feel some relief, and even some joy for her. But I can’t, and I am still struggling with that. Ana’s consciousness has become separated from us. It slowly slipped the grasp of her body over the past year, and now it is free. Her body failed her, as will all of ours eventually, but weighed against an entire lifetime of possibility, it happened too quickly, and too early. I will never reconcile with that; it will sit in my chest like a stone for the rest of my life. But I do believe that what her spirit lacks in the wisdom of age, it accounts for by being unbroken by the weight of the world. We will always remember her in her youth.

Now Ana has rejoined the collective consciousness of the universe. Many people call it God. Whether it is sentient and omnipotent, or it is a pervasive, omnipresent field of interconnected energy, I know that the energy that is Ana remains, for according to the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy can never be destroyed, it just changes form. For a brief cosmic moment, we captured Ana’s energy into her body, we raised and nurtured her, we experienced the world together, fraught with painful trials, and uplifted with simple joys with family and friends. Now her energy is released once again, and we who knew and loved her will always recognize its presence around us. It is not gone.

A poet named Henry Van Dyke wrote about death as a ship disappearing over the horizon, saying: “Then, someone at my side says There, she is gone! Gone where? Gone from my sight. That is all.”
I will end with this: I mentioned how Ana was private and didn’t like sharing the music she liked with very many others. One of those rare songs Ana shared her enjoyment with us was “Vienna,” by Billy Joel. The refrain is “when will you realize Vienna waits for you.” She always wanted to travel, so that’s where I imagine her spirit has gone. Vienna waited for her, and now she’s there, in whatever way she wants that to be, gone from my sight, but that is all. And you are all here, at the end of her journey on Earth, to see her off, and for that I am humbled, and eternally grateful. Read less