Had he lived, Paul Ostler would be 35 this year. But he is frozen in the minds of those who loved him: a boy of 15 his mother described even before his death as “full of light.”
“What a quirky kid,” Teresa Ostler told Deseret News this week. “He could be a little persnickety. A little cranky. And stubborn as the day was long. If everyone else in the family wanted to go to one movie, he wanted to go to something different. We’d just laugh about it.”
He was also a teenager of uncommon kindness and concern for others, those who still love him mightily agree. He loved books to an extraordinary degree, especially Harry Potter books, but his range was vast. In school, he had a friend who didn’t like to read, which was unfathomable to Paul.
“Mom, can you imagine what life would be like if you didn’t like to read?” he asked his mom. So he thought about it a while and picked the book he thought the friend might like from the hundreds he’d already amassed: Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game.” He was “tickled pink when his friend said he’d enjoyed it. He knew if he could pick the right book, he could turn his friend around.”
Books and Paul Ostler are inextricably linked in the minds of his friends and his family, including nieces and nephews who never met him but feel like they know him because of the stories his parents and three older brothers tell.
And his best friend, Matt Edwards, now the father of two very young children himself, figured that books would be the right way 20 years later to honor the memory of the boy he spent so much time with and loved so much as they were growing up.
Matt Edwards is launching a children’s book drive and asking for donations that can be shared with other children to help them grow their own love of books. Books can be dropped off at King’s English Bookstore, where Paul Ostler spent many happy hours growing up. Edwards said new books will benefit Granite School District’s Santa program, while teachers will be able to pick from gently used donations to bolster their classroom libraries.
The day Paul died
Teresa Ostler believes the last day of Paul’s life — Aug. 2, 2005, which was also his parents’ 25th wedding anniversary — was nearly perfect for her youngest son.
He was at a Scout camp in the high Uintas. The soon-to-be sophomore at East High School in Salt Lake City had already earned his Eagle Scout award, but he wanted to go to camp with Edwards. “They were inseparable,” Teresa Ostler said.
Edwards describes the day. The two pals picked up supplies for a basketweaving class. Right before dinner, they had a canoeing class and ran into some other friends from school. “It was fun. After dinner, we were playing cards, but the cards blew everywhere. It was too windy to go out.”
The storm that came up sent the boys from Troop 56 to their cabins, in this case three-sided Adirondacks, the front open. Paul was lying on his bunk when lightning struck a tree six feet away, then skipped inside. Four boys were injured including Paul. Paul was the only one who didn’t recover. He died instantly.
His mother describes it as a “tender mercy for us because we knew that he died in a place of absolute beauty. He was with his best friend and he was having so much fun. And he didn’t suffer.”
She was a nurse at Primary Children’s Hospital at the time and said a tender mercy especially for her was that two very skilled doctors were just steps away and tried valiantly to save Paul. She never once had to wonder what would have happened if help arrived quicker. It was right there.
“If he was meant to live, he would have lived,” she said. The doctors successfully resuscitated another boy, but Paul was gone.
That wedding anniversary is a tricky thing, she notes. Her marriage to Brent, Paul’s dad, marks the beginning of their family. But it also marks their hardest day. She and Brent are still together, which isn’t always the case when a couple loses a child. As a family, she said, they all just drew closer.
“When the Texas floods happened two weeks ago, I was reading about them. And I thought, how awful to send your child to camp and have them die there. Then I thought, ”Oh. That’s what happened to us. My heart goes out to those poor parents.”
Left to right Paul Ostler, Spencer Edwards, Greg Ostler (in the back) and Matt Edwards. Paul died in 2005 when lightning hit his cabin at Scout camp. His friend Matt is holding a book drive in his honor to remember him 20 years later. | Ostler family photo
Ostler was crying when she said a quote by Washington Irving has provided solace over these two decades: “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”
“How much we love him,” she said. “I am sad for you that you have to listen to my tears. But when you have someone you love so very much, it’s the price of love. You miss them. Paul was such a different creature.”
Paul’s pass-along book exchange
Books were at the heart of the way his family, too, chose to honor the Scout, who often read under the covers with a flashlight long into the night.
Paul’s brothers Jeff, Peter and Greg are all grown with their own kids and have given Brent and Teresa 11 grandchildren between them. Paul’s parents moved several years ago to Asheville, North Carolina, after Teresa Ostler and her sister decided to start a wellness retreat called Skyterra Wellness.
Paul didn’t just read books; he had loved to pass them along to friends he thought would enjoy them. After he died, they kept celebrating his birthday. Children were invited to a big birthday party with balloons and hundreds and hundreds of books with a little nameplate in them with Paul’s picture. Guests were invited to pass the books along, to donate one or take one or both to celebrate reading and the boy who loved to do so.
“We still hear about books that are traveling,” Teresa Ostler said. “A couple of weeks ago we heard of one that made it to The Netherlands. It’s been a neat way to keep him alive in our hearts.”
And in Edwards’ heart, too. The idea for the book drive came recently when Edwards, who is a chief financial officer for a company, was reading to his kids, ages 2 and 4. “We still have some of Paul’s pass-along books. I guess I’m not good at passing them along. They’re sentimental.”
His kids were fascinated by the photo of Paul and the short biography on the name plate. It gave Edwards the idea to honor his pal on the 20th anniversary.
“We were basically brothers,” he said. “Our dads worked together and were friends, plus we lived close.” The Ostler and Edwards families were unrelated, but like kin, each with boys the same age who were great friends. Paul’s older brother Jeff had already grown up, but his brother Peter was the same age as Matt’s brother Aaron. His brother Greg was the same age as Spencer Edwards. And, of course, Matt Edwards and Paul were friends. With those paired ages and the friendships that produced, the families went camping together, did church activities, rode bikes, walked to and from school and did Scouting activities. Edwards’ dad, Doug, was one of the Scout leaders on the fateful trip.
Books can be dropped at The King’s English Bookstore, 1511 S. 1500 East in Salt Lake City between now and Aug. 15. They’ll be donated to children in Granite School District as a jumpstart to what Edwards hopes will be a lifelong love of reading. And a fitting memorial for the boy who loved books and the enduring power of friendship.