Remembering Esme Barrera

Here is an example of the sort of person Esme Barrera was:

In 2010, Jessica Hopper, a writer from Chicago, was five months pregnant with her son when she came to Austin for South by Southwest.

She had corresponded with Barrera a bit when Hopper was working on "The Girls' Guide to Rocking," a book about starting bands and booking shows aimed at pre-teen girls.

At SXSW, Hopper went to a show on the wrong night at a location far outside downtown. A cab was out of the question, so she grabbed a bus that seemed to be going in more or less the correct direction, getting off when she saw some folks who looked like they went to a lot of punk shows, hoping someone could show her how to get back to town.

"And there was Esme," Hopper said. "She insisted on walking me back to where I was going, making sure I was OK. She came to both my book events, she made sure I found some food I could eat, she sent me encouraging texts and I had only exchanged some emails with her before that point. I literally felt relief every time I ran into her."

And this is someone who Barrera previously had never once encountered face to face.

Esme Barrera, 29, was killed in the early-morning hours of Jan. 1 in her home, some time after celebrating New Year's with friends at the 29th Street Ballroom, a venue mere blocks from her house. No arrests have been made. Her funeral is today in El Paso, where she grew up. A memorial in Austin is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at Fiesta Gardens.

As we all know, hearing about death does strange things, grinding perception to a halt. But death in the age of social media twists time in another direction.

News of Barrera's passing seemed to explode on Facebook in an ever-widening circle of shock and horror and grief. Beautifully written and heartfelt blog tributes appeared out of thin air. Friends met to cry and hold each other in Austin and El Paso.

Within a day (hours?), a PayPal fund had been set up at forouresmeb.blogspot.com to help her family defray expenses they should never have had to pay. Jim Ward, a musician who played with the nationally known El Paso band At the Drive-In, canceled the remainder of an Australian tour to return to Texas for the funeral.

Last week was Free Week in many of Austin's clubs, so collection jars were set up. Several benefits were organized within days, including one at Beerland on Jan. 28, for which Ted Leo, an artist whom Barrera adored, volunteered to play and sent the following tweet: "I was privileged to briefly know an inspirational person from Austin, Tx., who was murdered this NYE. Her name was Esme & she'll be missed."

Barrera wasn't a celebrity in the usual money-and-fame sense of the word, but her death, and the joy of her life, has reverberated as if she was a household name. People knew her as an evangelical music fan, as a special education assistant at Casis Elementary, a clerk at Waterloo Records or as a patient counselor at Girls Rock Camp Austin.

Her life is an example of how one person can affect all sorts of communities, sometimes communities that don't necessarily know about each other.

"I had no idea she had all these different communities, none," said writer Robyn Czarnecki, whose children attended Girls Rock Camp and adored Barrera. "All I knew was my kid's friend had died. I moved here in 1990, 1991, and I have never seen anything like this reaction. She was just a really, really good person."

This comes up again and again when speaking to people about Barrera:

Everything you've heard about her is true.

"She was the sort of person with whom you could have a two-hour text message exchange about (the Replacements song) 'Can't Hardly Wait.'" -- friend, musician and fellow Girls Rock Camp volunteer Melissa Bryan

The lifeblood of any local music scene are the serious fans, the ones who are out at clubs more nights of the week than they are not, and Barrera, who moved to Austin from El Paso in 2004, was as big a fan as a band could possibly want. She loved music passionately, endlessly, and her love was infectious.

"She wanted life to be better than regular life for everyone, and I do not mean that in a trite way," said Ray Colgan, who sings with the Crack Pipes, worked at Emo's and manages Antone's.