Graduation Speech: Tragic Death Of Alaska Ann Eaton

We are gathered here today to celebrate Alaska Ann Eaton’s beautiful and extraordinary life. She had a tragic death. Going scuba driving for your 3rd year wedding anniversary and getting attacked by a shark…well that’s extremely tragic. She was an animal person and maybe that's why she had dolphins surrounding her trying to help rescue her and stop the shark. But that’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt. She always mentioned this one quote, “The only to way escape the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive”, but let’s not focus on the pain of her death but the joy of her life. She was born on September 5th 2003 and she became a Christian when she was 8 years old and she went to many churches. I met her when she came to ELCA in middle school. We
I could always tell she was a Christian by the way she acted and she could always laugh at herself, but what a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more then a person. As Seniors, Katie(her best friend), Jace (my brother and Katie's husband), Alaska and I went on a mission trip to South Africa to help out at orphanages. She always wanted to be legally named Alaska and so in 2020 she legally changed it to Alaska. Then, we graduated together as class of 2021. Katie, Jase, Alaska and I went back packing across Europe together, before we all went to college. That trip was included some of the best moments that I had with her. When we went to the France and we saw the Eiffel Tower, I will never forget how her face lit up with excitement and awe. And going to England and seeing Big Ben was amazing with her. When we went to Norway and visited the Viking ship museum, it was amazing how interested she was in the history and culture of the Vikings. That was a great trip. Then we went to college at Auburn, and since we took enough AP classes we only had to complete the last two years of college for our bachelor degree. She got