Families wearing blue and white Wyoming Cowboys T-shirts, holding homemade cardboard signs and dogs on leashes and American flags, waited by the edge of the main street for Otto Warmbier’s funeral procession to drive by. As the memorial at the town’s high school, attended by thousands, ended, people in black dresses and dark suits joined those along the street.
Many were wiping away tears; the ceremony, a celebration of Warmbier’s life, had been funny and eloquent, much like the 22-year-old University of Virginia student, beloved by many in this small suburb of Cincinnati and far beyond.
Friends and family shared memories of, as one put it, “this inspiring goofball of a man,” and the essential lessons they had learned from him. His little sister Greta Warmbier remembered barreling down the road with him in his silver Chevy Impala, with blue dice and a fuzzy steering-wheel cover, windows down, singing Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You” at the top of their lungs. Her oldest brother loved funny movies, she said, but she chose a line from chick flick to sum up his life cut so very short: I’d rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.
Last week, when Warmbier finally came home, people tied ribbons to the trees that arch over the main street here and to the wooden street signs hanging from wrought-iron scrolls in this close-knit suburb of Cincinnati. Otto Warmbier had been imprisoned in North Korea for nearly a year and a half. People had been praying for his release. But he returned in a coma, medically evacuated, so the close-knit community sought, without words, to convey how much they felt.
He died Monday, surrounded by family.
Internationally, his death reverberated. Several national leaders called it murder. President Trump called it a disgrace. It intensified already-raw tensions between the United States and North Korea.
At home, it brought people together.
The surge of people walking toward Wyoming High School, on streets so quiet the birds sounded loud, was one sign of that love. By 7 a.m. Thursday, young people were stepping through the wet grass to gather outside Wyoming High School, where Warmbier gave a joyful graduation speech as salutatorian four years ago.
A crowd of young women in black dresses hugged before joining the growing crowd by the door. Groups of young men in dark suits walked along the quiet neighborhood streets, where blue and white ribbons are tied to thousands of trees.
The ribbons were another sign. Volunteers fanned out Wednesday well past the center of this city of 8,400 people, far beyond the large Victorian houses, stone churches and graceful old trees, to ensure that the ribbons in Wyoming city schools colors fluttered all along the route from the high school to the iron gates of the cemetery where Warmbier will be buried. A few orange ribbons, a nod to the U-Va., were tied there as well.
People waited patiently to go in: an elderly lady who struggled to walk along the graduation walk, where seniors have bricks etched with their name; crowds of young people; and boys too young to knot their own ties.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was there, along with deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Joseph Yun, a State Department official who played an instrumental role in getting Warmbier out of North Korea.
“I think today we’re seeing good and evil all at once,” Portman said. The good was the line of people waiting behind him, the outpouring of love. The evil was just as visible.
“Otto Warmbier is dead because of North Korea,” he said.
Shortly before 9 a.m., there were still hundreds of people in line, and officials began warning them it was likely not everyone would be able to get in. The high school had capacity, between several rooms, for 2,500 people. In the gym, people pressed close on blue bleachers, watching a screen of the ceremony in the auditorium.
There were other signs of love: Pops of orange, for one, a sign that friends from the University of Virginia had arrived.
It was there in the thoughtfulness of a sign in a very long driveway of a house very close to the memorial service: Please park here.
It was there in a Wyoming park, where a man bounced a baby, beaming, over his head, and two boys dropped a baseball glove and a scooter and sprawled onto the grass by a flagpole.
The American flag, just overhead, was flying at half-staff.
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Many people smiled as they stepped into the high school Thursday morning, and saw long tables covered with Warmbier’s quirky thrift-store finds. In the gym, people pressed close on blue bleachers, watching a screen of the ceremony in the auditorium.
Rabbi Jake Rubin paused after a prayer to say that Fred and Cindy Warmbier wanted to give special thanks to Yun. The crowd gave him a standing ovation.
Rubin, executive director of the Brody Jewish Center of U-Va., with whom Warmbier had become close, talked about Warmbier’s growing Jewish faith, awakened on a trip to Israel with Rubin and others. He chose the name Amit there, Rubin said – perfect for someone who valued friendship, relationships, so much.
Several friends and family members laughed as they talked about Warmbier: How he was a hugger; a sweater; a guy who would drag you to the dustiest, crustiest old thrift store, then exult over the Bengals jersey he had scored; how he would routinely wake up roommates in the morning by singing underground rap, off pitch; how quickly he could down a 40-ounce beer. (Very, very quickly.)
Emmett Saulnier, one of his roommates at U-Va. remembered crazy nights out and traveling the world and how Warmbier would always return from a trip, whether a summer at the London School of Economics, a trip to the Galapagos, or to Cuba with his mother, glowing with energy from the adventure of it all. Saulnier had waited 18 months, he said, to hear what he thought would be the craziest travel story ever.
Sanjana Sekhar, another close friend from U-Va., who met him through a prestigious U-Va. scholarship for the most intellectually curious students, had just read Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and always thought of this line: “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ “
“Otto was a fabulous yellow Roman candle kind of person,” she said. She spoke fondly of his empathy, and their endless talks in the hall outside his door, on long drives, in the garage of his fraternity. He pushed her to be better, to question more, to give everyone in life a chance.
“I look forward to every moment of pure unfiltered life the future holds,” she said. “To never yawn, or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn. That is his legacy.”
Some of his best friends from college had driven to Wyoming straight from Charlottesville, where 600 people had gathered for a candlelight vigil the day after his death, and a professor spoke of the Jewish prayer for mourners, its emphasis not on death and loss but the abiding presence of God. “There are mysteries we cannot fathom,” he said. Friends had spoken, as candles glowed in the amphitheater around them, about his brilliance, his adventurousness, his boundless joy, his faith in connection. He was the one to call rather than text, often, for routine plans (even if friends initially found that weird). He was the one to ignore a hand proffered for an introductory handshake with a grin and a tight embrace, saying, “Let’s bring it in,” or “Let’s hug it out!”
Warmbier was a junior at U-Va., headed for a career in finance, when he went to North Korea with a tour group on the way to a study-abroad program in Hong Kong.
He was not allowed to leave the country. He was accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster, charged with “hostile acts against the state,” and given a 15-year sentence after a sham trial.
His parents had no word of him since March 2, 2016, until earlier this month, when North Korean officials disclosed that he was in a coma, and had been for more than a year.
After a medical evacuation, an air ambulance touched down in Cincinnati last week, and he was rushed to the hospital. Doctors said he had a severe neurological injury, and was unresponsive.
Alex Vagonis, who just graduated from U-Va., told the crowd about the bin full of thrift-store ties he had amassed, going to Waffle House with him after semi-formals, the intense interest he brought to everything, as though he might just burst into thin air. She told the other students that they would get through the horror of his death; to do otherwise would be an injustice to Warmbier, she said, since he always wanted to see others fly.
Sarah Kenny, student council president who organized the vigil, said she was surprised that people didn’t seem more angry, more vindictive about his death.
“I am incredulous that after going through something so traumatic, they could be that hopeful, and just – full of love.”
On the program for the celebration of his life was a line from his high school graduation speech, quoting a character on “The Office”: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
People came Thursday morning, by the hundreds, to celebrate Otto Warmbier, and something they wanted to hold onto: the good old days.
Austin Warmbier, his younger brother, spoke last. He graciously thanked everyone, then said: Enough with the formalities. Can you imagine how miserable Otto made my life?
He laughed about trying to follow in the footsteps of an older brother who was always on time, had perfect grades, was great at sports and incredibly popular. And he talked about how much he had learned from his brother, about setting goals, about discipline, about how you don’t win the most friends by being the coolest, the most judgmental.
His brother missed his high school graduation, he said. He won’t be best man at his wedding. His kids will never have an Uncle Otto.
But Otto Warmbier indelibly made him who he was, he said, just as he had shaped so many people there. “That’s why we will never truly lose him.”
There was silence – only broken by sobs – then a bagpipe began to play.
Otto Warmbier’s casket was carried out.
After the burial, the Warmbiers had invited everyone – all of Wyoming, U-Va. friends, doctors, dignitaries – over to their house. The celebration was just starting.
