Blog 687 – 07.08.2017
(Excerpt from the book, Emily – The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)

Episode 8

Those weeks before babies lose that rubber neck are a scary time for most dads especially with little girls.They seems so fragile and we are so afraid we will hurt them.

Emily was breast fed so I was not awakened for nightly feedings, not having the proper equipment. But she was a little colicky a few night so I remember spelling her mama rocking her which was the only thing that seemed to calm her, that or riding in the car, I actually had a Ford Courier pickup at the time with the car seat in the middle facing forward, this was before they understood this was not the safest way to transport a baby. Worse yet her brothers had to ride in the back and though it had a camper cover they had to sit on the humps over the rear wheels and hold on to the cranks that raised the roll out windows on the sides. We were broadsided once by a lady who ran a four way stop just as we entered the intersection. No one was hurt but the passenger side behind the door was dented and the handle David was holding onto broke off in his hand and Ben was shaken up pretty badly. Soon after I traded it in on a four door Buick so we could ride together as a family in safety and comfort. As a boy I thought riding in the back of a pickup was great fun but times, taste, and even laws change.

There was a song made popular by The Carpenters that goes:

“God bless the beasts and the
children for in this world they
have no voice. They have no
choice.”

I have heard it said that the reason children and animals do not speak is because they are closer to the unseen world and would spoil the charade if they could speak. Some believe we are all divine and eternal creatures who make journeys into Space and Time to have adventures much like the New Generation Star Trek crew did on their Holo-deck. The problem is for it to seem real we have to experience a sort of temporary amnesia in order to really “buy in” to the illusion. There are glitches and clues that it is all a dream to be sure but much like we suspend our awareness to enjoy a book, movie, play, or video game we are reluctant to wake up from the dream especially if it is an enjoyable one.

Just one more anecdotal piece of evidence to support this assumption and I will move on. To those who spend a great deal of time and thought searching for the meaning of life I submit the round many of us learned to sing as children:

“Row, row, row your boat gently
down the stream. Merrily,
merrily, merrily life is but a
dream.”

There you have definitive proof, not really, but food for thought.

Did you every look into the eyes of a small child or animal and wonder what they were thinking about, what secret knowledge they possessed. Even after children begin to speak they often live in a world far bigger and more magical than the one we adults know.  Jesus said, “To enter the kingdom of heaven you must become as a little child,” and in another place, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” Little children know heaven is in our hearts, but adults tend to forget being so caught up in the illusions of Time and Space.

I have said already and will probably repeat many more times throughout these episodes from the life of my angel Emily that she taught me far more than I ever taught her. Before she was three she opened me up to a much bigger world than I ever knew existed before. Such is the power of love and not the love of a father for his daughter but the reverse, the love of a daughter for her dad.

Someone might ask why such a wonderful and unique person would only be allowed thirty two years. First, we are each of us wonderful and unique but why is a question all parents ask who lose a child or all of us who as the song says, “We’ve lost friends and loved ones much too young with so much promise and work left undone.”

One of the best explanation for short lives I have ever heard comes  from a young boy who seized upon a plausible reason for why dog lives are so short compared to humans. Children have an affinity with animals. The little boy said we have these lives to learn to love and dogs don’t linger here long because they already know how. Yeah, I know, pretty big words for a little boy. I further submit that we all start life knowing how to love but like so much of who we were and what we knew before we came to this Time and Space plane we think we have forgotten. I love the expression, “It is all coming back to me now.”

Scientists now believe that the personality of a child is almost completely developed by the age of three and that this is accomplished not so much by an expansion of the brain but a shutting down or limiting of synapses. A child’s mind is a wonder of possibilities and sadly we teach them to close doors not open them. Is it any wonder that a child’s first word is not Mama or Daddy as we so hope it will be but “No.” It is the word children hear most often as they are exploring the wide world before them. A good teacher would guide them to opening up as many doors as they desired but it is they not we who are the true teachers. Adult mode as described in psychological terms is a closed off, narrow, opinionated, and judgmental position. While the child mode is open, fearless, adventuresome and without judgment. We confuse judgment for discernment and in most cases choose the least effective one.

Children have excellent discernment till we teach them not to trust their own feelings and perceptions. Here is an example that most people now recognize as child abuse. Three generations ago school teachers tried to force left-handed children to write with their right hand creating a host of problems for the child some that took a life time to recover from if at all in one lifetime. A line attributed to Jesus of Nazareth seems to fit here, “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transform by the renewing of your mind.” Another verse about minds has intrigued me for some time, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being found in the form of God thought it not robbery our something to be grasped but humbled himself taking on the form of a servant.”

Why are some people so easy for us to love and others not so? I think it is because for some reason it is easier for us see God in some people. And just this moment the reason came to me. They look at us with eyes of love. I used to see it backwards. There is a sweet story about a little girl whose mother asked her, “Why do you love me?” And the little angel replied, “Well, I guess I love you mommy because you loved me when I was too little to love you back.” But sweet as that sounds it is backwards and I see it now. I loved Emily at first sight because I saw God in her eyes that reflected that she saw God in me. “Fathers be good to your daughters. You are the god and the light of her world.”

I was thinking of the sixties pop standard this morning, The Look of Love – it goes: “You’ve got the look of love. It’s in your eyes. The look your smile can’t disguise…saying so much more than just words can ever say…what my heart has told me it takes my breath away. The look of love.”

Before she ever had words Emily communicated the great secret that I have come to describe as – you are loved, you are love able, you are altogether lovely for you are love. The last words she heard before she left us were spoken by her beau Toby who knew her and recognized her for who she is and we all truly are. Toby whispered in her ear, “Thou art God.” That was the greeting of the man from Mars, Michael Smith, in Robert Heinlein’s book Stranger In A Strange Land. I introduced Emily to the book and she loved it as I do.

Some wonder why I do not grieve the loss of my little girl. Well, she was never my little girl really but a magnificent being playing a role for me to gently awaken me from a dream that got a whole lot sweeter when she made her appearance in it. I am still awakening and someday when I am fully awake this particular dream/play/adventure will be over. There will be a cast party to beat them all that will be held to thank all the cast for their contributions to my wonderful play, which has to me been a bigger, better version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

One last thought before I close this chapter. I was eating out the other day and a baby sitting at a table nearby turned around in his or her seat to smile the biggest brightest smile at me. I recognized that look of love. I wondered if Emily has already been cast in a new role. I’d know that look, that smile anywhere.

Your Fellow Traveler and Emily’s Dad,
David White