Blog 358 – 07.30.2016

(Excerpt from the book, Emily -The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)

Episode 30
Em’s Viking Funeral
In nineteen eighty eight there was a movie called Rocket Gibraltar starring Burt Lancaster, in one of his last movie roles, and a very young Macauley Culkin, in his first. Lancaster plays the patriarch of a large family vacationing at his beach home. He expresses his final wish to his grand children that he be given a Viking funeral, that his body be placed in a boat with plenty of kindling, pushed out in the water, and set ablaze with flaming arrows. After grandpa passes and his children argue over where and how their dad is to be buried the grandchildren steal his body and grant Rocket Gibraltar his last wish. It is a touching movie and I believe it touched Emily. And some may think her whole family was a bit touched for carrying out her final wishes.
It was Emily’s wish that after donating any parts of her body that might be of help to others that her remains be cremated and taken to the next Outland family reunion, that was Grandma Nancy’s side of the family. From the time Emily was a teenager she attended the annual celebrations of her grandma’s family as often as she could. She loved Lake Murray, Kentucky where the event took place. It was there she wanted her ashes placed in a little boat, pushed out into the lake, then set afire with flaming arrows. And we, her crazy kin, did it. Em’s much loved nephew and excellent archer, Travis, shot the flaming arrow. That guy like his Auntie Em really knows how to wear a hat.
I was working near Denver, Colorado at the time but arranged to be off work a few days. The Outland reunion always took place on the Memorial Day weekend and began on Friday evening with a family dinner at a local restaurant in Murray, Kentucky followed by a get together at Aunt Dottie’s afterwards. So I flew to Houston, rented a car, drove to Austin, and picked up Emily’s Mom, Sandra. We drove from Austin to Murray timing our trip to arrive early Friday afternoon so Sandra could rest a bit and attend the dinner gathering. She did not attended the after dinner gathering as she wisely paced herself saving her strength and emotions for the several events in which she most wanted to invest her emotions.
It was a wonderful time for me meeting for the first time people that I had heard stories about for many years because they had been important in Sandra’s life. David (Em’s oldest older brother) and his wife Tabatha flew in from Arlington, Texas, where the Cowboys and Rangers play, to Nashville, rented a car and drove up to Murray. So Emily final wish came true. Two of her Davids were there to see her off after all.
Saturday evening the whole gang of Outlands, in-laws, and a few outlaws met to celebrate each other and to try on our Viking hats before Emily’s send off the following afternoon at Lake Murray.

Sunday afternoon we all met for lunch at a nearby eatery. We more than filled their party room and Deb had a slide presentation of many of the previous reunions and Emily was prominent in many of them as she definitely was this the final day of the 2013 Outland Family Union. After lunch we caravaned to Lake Murray to the lakeside home of one of the family members and there after a brief talk by the Reverend Deb Angerman and even briefer tributes by some us who just had to say something about our beloved Em, the little boat containing her ashes was towed out into the lake by a pontoon boat and Travis set it ablaze with a flaming arrow and we all watched as the flames burned brightly much as our darling did all throughout her thirty two year adventure in time and space.
As I looked around at the crowd I saw many wearing Viking helmets, some with blond braids dangling, some horns up, some horns down, at least one with one horn up and one horn down, and others wearing Em’s trademark head scarfs, I remember thinking that Emily observing this gang would say, “My crazy family, I love them, if I’d asked them to throw  my ashes off the Empire State Building they would have done it. Thanks guys. See you later. Love, Em.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White