Blog 334 – 07.08.2016
(Excerpt from the book, Emily – The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)

Episode 6

There might be some controversy as to what Emily’s last wish was. According to her mother it was that her body be cremated and taken to the next Outland family reunion in Murray, Kentucky/Dover, Tennessee a place that held many fond memories for Em. It was there with her family around that she wanted her cremated  remains scattered on Kentucky Lake. She wanted a Viking funeral, boat, flaming arrows, the works. And further, according to her mother Emily wanted her two Davids in attendance, her older brother David and me, her daddy. Ben had been with her when she died so he got to say farewell. There was no mention of her other brother Jonathan but I know Emily loved him too. Perhaps she thought David and I would most need the closure and the chance to show her other family members that we loved her too and weren’t complete jerks for not coming to see her in the hospital but that we were really just too tender-hearted to watch the light of our lives go out. We’d have both been blubbering messes and Emily’s last scene did not need that. Her brother Ben, her mother Sandra, and her other mother Linda were way more help that David or I could or would have been.
I have come to believe that we are not just the leading actor in the passion play that is our life but the author, director, producer, yes, and even casting director and set designer of the whole production. For thirty-two years of my sixty-four Emily played a leading role in my life and I think I did as well in hers. Her brothers too with her little brother Jon playing a smaller role because she spent so little time with him but anyone and everyone who spent time with Emily felt her love.
In the book and movie Cider House Rules there is a great fight scene where one of the characters says, “Do you know what business you are in? I’m in the knife business.” Emily realized early in her short life what our true “Family Business” is – we are in the loving business. Everyone who knew Emily not only felt her love but loved her. If you did not have the privilege I hope through these pages, pictures, poems, and her music that you will come to know her too. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss the warmth, the light, the joy that was and still is Emily.
I said there might be some controversy as to what Emily’s last wish was. Oh, she got her Viking funeral, with her two Davids in attendance, a host of those she dearly loved and choreographed by her cousin Deb, an ordained United Methodist minister. That episode will have its own act or chapter in this little play or book. If you ask me, I think Emily’s final wish was her final scene. Some people think life just happens you know like “Sh– Happens” as if that was a bad thing. If it doesn’t happen on an almost daily basis you have a much bigger problem than dealing with a little waste disposal. In the movie The Fisher King, the late Robin Williams, describes a good sh–as an almost spiritual experience. If you think I digress bear with me. Most people think dying, especially a painful death, is the most sh–ty experience in life. Emily evidently did not because she scripted a doozy.

As I said I could not bear to be there and watch my baby girl suffer but her mother told me that Emily bravely held on while waiting on her other mother to make the long drive up to Virginia from Texas. During that wait Emily got to have her great dying scene. Friends and family she had known and touched in her life literally lined the hospital hall waiting a chance to see and be with Emily one last time. Someone remarked, “Who is that young woman all those people are waiting in such a line to see.” A very important person, who knew the secret Dale Carnegie wrote of in his book How To Win a Friends and Influence People. He wrote in one chapter how to make even the mortician cry at your funeral. The secret is to genuinely love people. Emily did and she took the time to make sure you knew how important you were to her. Being loved like that makes you miss that person when they leave. And makes you want to be more like that for those left behind. Thank you, Emily, for your legacy of love.

Your fellow traveler, Emily’s Dad,
David White