On Dec. 16, 2024, my beloved friend Inna passed away, surrounded by loved ones, who journeyed with her through the nearly year-long rare and aggressive cancer that ended her 29 years of a remarkable life. Inna was my oldest friend that I chose myself, making it through middle school, and high school, through her nursing school and my years abroad, to then magically finding our way back to each other in adulthood to live the best years of our lives together in a magical house on New York Street downtown.
I was honored to give the eulogy below at her funeral service. I wanted to share it for all the friends and family who weren't able to be in attendance, but who cherish and love her with the exact same fervor that was so heavy in the room that day.
I want to start by saying, Inna would have weirdly loved this. She would've loved to have seen what everyone was wearing, what everybody looks like since high school, what kind of gossip she could find. She would be snapping along like she was at a drag show, and laughing with her friends, and comforting every single person here who she loved so deeply.
I'm one of the lucky ones. Inna and I were girls together. We worried about middle school crushes and made terrible twee fashion choices and talked endlessly about what kind of life we wanted to live over Facebook messages. And then we got to be young adventurers together, with Tara, getting to be in Bohol, Philippines, sweatily biking across ziplines over the Chocolate Hills and swimming with turtles. And then we got to live together for two wonderful years with Holly and Tara, and my naughty labradoodle Elliot, making memories out of random weekday nights, being so hyperaware of how lucky were were. Those years together were so special because we knew they were while we were in them.
A short, non-comprehensive list of things Inna loved:
-Ru Paul's drag race
-her annual end of summer tubing trip in some random Indiana town
-eating, but not just to eat, but to truly savor
-traveling as a lifestyle
-her brother Paolo
-her closet, that was so enviable and overflowing that it could tempt an honest gal into theft
-hosting parties like it was an Olympic sport
-The 1975
-her parents
-nursing but absolutely not the term "healthcare hero"
-Filipino culture and all things Asian, as a founding member of Zionsville High School's Asian Appreciation club which was really just a front to watch K-dramas
-fellow Filipino queen Gabriella from High School Musical
-rowing, which was really just a front to be bossy
-delighting in mixing friend groups and people because all of her people were just so cool
-that period of time before going out when you're just kind of gabbing and trying on looks
-being accepting of all people long before mainstream culture caught up
-trash TV
-all of her friends, whom she made family, who all felt the exact same sense of betrayal that I did because we all felt like WE were truly Inna's best friend (but really we all know it was Tara)
-owning too many plants
-Emmie
Inna was truly everything everyone said. Kind, witty, loyal, generous, fashionable, an icon, a best friend, unbelievably photogenic and beautiful.
But I will say the one single negative thing you'll hear together about Inna. I'm sure you all felt it too, that Inna often struggled to see herself this way, not always knowing that she was the brightest thing lighting up the room. She was everyone's biggest hype man, the showerer of the best compliments you'd ever recieve, and she had a way of believing in you until you believed in yourself. So I think a way that we all can honor Inna is to see ourselves the way that she saw us. To see the very best. To live as authentically and magically as she did because it was truly want she would want.
Lastly, if you are a female friend or relative of Inna's can you please stand up? Ate Gigi and Kuya Ferdie, please look around this room and know that you have daughter in all of us because we loved Inna and we loved her love for you.
Inna, I will love and miss you always.
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