Dedication Spotlight: The Rev Eston Collins

If you’ve ever had a chance to look at our second release, The Mistletoe Paradox, you would have seen this dedication in the front:

Dedicated to The Rev. Eston Collins

Thank you for recognizing and believing in young writers

Growing up, my mother worked for the Episcopal Diocese in Western Washington. She was in charge of programs for youth and young adults, and her office was this big, beautiful building on Capitol Hill in the heart of Seattle. The building was once a grand old mansion that had been donated to the church years ago when the owner passed away. My mother’s office was down on the lowest level, with little basement windows peaking out onto the gardens in the back. And next door to her, was the Reverend Eston Collins.

Eston was the priest in charge of the School of Theology, which provided ongoing religious education for people in the diocese.

“He was an excellent preacher,” my mother explained to me when I asked her about Eston for this article. “And he was a great people-person. He liked all people. He liked kids.” 

I was about 9-years-old when Eston was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He lived in an apartment on Capitol Hill, but as he got sicker he would come to stay at our house in Des Moines for a few days at a time. It was more space, there were people around, and it provided a change of scenery. Though it’s in the suburbs, my parents’ house is tucked away at the end of a long driveway, away from the street and surrounded by trees.

“He liked being (at the house). It got him out of Capitol Hill,” my mother said.  “And he loved going out on the upper deck and looking out at his kingdom.”

That’s something I can relate to. Most wouldn’t consider the upper deck of the house to have much of a view, but that’s only if you limit your vision to what counts as a view. If you love seeing trees sway in the wind, if you like to watch rain as it falls on the grass or trinkles into small streams away from the carport, if you love to feel like you can see everything but no one can see you, then my parents’ upper deck has a great view.

My parents have always loved taking care of people when they need help, though they also have a tendency to attract people who struggle to accept that help. “He would be upstairs and I would always worry about him falling,” my mother explained. “So I gave him a bell if he needed anything. But Eston was Eston, so he would come to the bottom of the stairs to ring the bell.”

I remember that bell. I rang it once, not knowing what it was for, and my mother came rushing over. She explained that this was an important bell and I wasn’t supposed to ring it. It was Eston’s bell.

It’s very hard for a 9-year-old not to ring a bell.

I asked my mother about the book dedication, about why she wanted to put Eston’s name there. She talked about a time that summer, when I was set to leave with my grandparents for several weeks on a road trip across the country to meet some of my distant relatives for the very first time.

“When he knew that you were going to go with Nonnie and Papa on the journey back to Ohio, he asked me to go to this specific store and get a notebook so you could have a diary of your time,” my mother explained. No one thought of me as a writer at that time. I didn’t even think of myself as one. But Eston knew this trip would be important to me, and knew I would want to write about my experience. As my mother said, he loved kids.

“He was kind, he was fair,” she told me. “He was honest and true. He was a good friend to people. And he had a great sense of humor. Even from his (death)bed he would make you laugh.”

I’m not sure how many months Eston was sick, coming to our house for a few days at a time to get out of the city and be among the trees. My mother couldn’t quite remember, only that “in people time it was fairly quick.” But I do remember going to visit him at his apartment near the end. My mother took me, and she brought her guitar so we could sing to him at his bedside while he lay dying. The song I remember most of all was “Sweet Sweet Spirit.” My mother sang it at his funeral as well, at Eston’s request. To this day I think of him every time I hear it:

Without a doubt we'll know

that we have been revived,

When we shall leave this place.