MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Even in the toughest five months of their lives, Stacy Chapin and her family are pushing forward, as she said her son Ethan would have wanted.
“You have to persevere,” said Stacy Chapin, the mother of Ethan Chapin. “It's one of the very first things we told the kids when we saw them on November 13th. It's changed our family, but it isn't going to sink us.”
Nov. 13 was the day her son Ethan was murdered at a house near the University of Idaho, along with his girlfriend Xana Kernodle and her roommates Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.
“We've been, you know, five months in the depth of grief, I don't know what else to call it,” said Chapin. “I wouldn't wish it on anybody. We've spent a tremendous amount of time with Hunter and Maizie trying to heal them.”
While Hunter and Maizie, Ethan’s siblings, are still at the University of Idaho, Stacy and her husband are volunteering this year at Tulip Valley Farms during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, helping sell the tulips planted in honor of Ethan, called “Ethan’s Smile."
“He had a beautiful smile. Warm, kind, charismatic,” said Chapin. “There's just something about him, he was born that way.”
Ethan's friends, who he worked with at the tulip festival a couple of years ago, were the ones who started planting the flowers around town after his murder. He was a coworker who was a light, and always a bit of a goofball.
"Ethan was one of those kids where the kids would call the scheduler and say ‘Put me on when Ethan’s on.’ Ethan was the kid, you could ask him to take the trash out and you would find him out there, jumping in the trash can, singing some song," said Chapin.
Many people, from former teachers to friends, have been able to come to Tulip Valley Farms and find some sort of healing through the tulips.
“It’s the best we can do, honestly, other than to be his voice and to try and do something positive in his name, make something positive out of this situation,” said Chapin.
Money from the “Ethan’s Smile” tulips is going to the newly created Ethan's Smile Foundation, in which the main goal is to give scholarships to kids in Skagit County.
“My ultimate goal, honestly, is to give a kid a full four-year education who wants to go to the University of Idaho,” said Chapin. “The foundation for us is to take Ethan's, you know, kindness and enthusiasm and goals that he had and try to give that to other kids. It's the best we can do to carry on his dreams and goals.”
Although tulips will never be the same as seeing Ethan’s smile in person, it is a symbol of the joy Ethan brought to the world. A joy Stacy Chapin hopes will be carried out by others.
“You have to live your best life. Live life like Ethan,” said Chapin. “I mean, we've kind of said it from the very beginning, he just had a way about the outlook, you know, take some time, just take a step back and see the good in everything.”
You can buy the bulbs for the tulips and other Ethan’s Smile products online at the Ethan’s Smile Foundation website. You can buy tulips, sweatshirts and other Ethan’s Smile gear at Tulip Valley Farms.
The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is scheduled to run through April 30.