Blog 3517 – 06.21.2025

We’ve Still Got Time

A year or so before my daughter passed she sent me a mixed CD for Father’s Day. Music was something Emily and I always shared. On that particular CD was a hauntingly beautiful song entitled Falling Slowly. I am not sure if I even listened to the song before my daughter passed, yet in the weeks and months following her death I listened to that whole CD over and over till I had all of the songs memorized.

A phrase that comes to me often from that song is “We’ve Still Got Time.” In the last year of Emily’s life I was able to buy her a good used car that her cousin’s husband Don helped her to pick out. It was the best and most reliable vehicle that she ever owned. Sadly it was totaled in an accident, but fortunately Emily was not hurt. She still had about six months time left and in that time I am so glad and grateful that she found the great love of her life, Toby Harris. He was her sax man and together they named their musical collaboration Dancing With Spock. You can find recordings of two of their live performances on YouTube by just Googling YouTube Dancing with Spock and click on the links to True and to My Boyfriend Drives A Spaceship.

Many who live far longer than the thirty-two year Magical Mystery Tour, that my Emily’s last adventure was, still never find the great love of their lives. Musically, emotionally, and creatively those last six months of Em’s life were the happiest and most fulfilling for her. On her last days in the hospital as an aggressive cancer took her life Toby was with her and a multitude of family and friends came by to share their love and to say farewell.

I believe that Emily, at least her higher self scripted her final act as she did the thirty-two episodes of Emily’s life that I tried to capture in a little book that I wrote about her and published on this blog called, Emily, The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along. The title comes from the Norah Jones song Seven which was one of Emily’s favorites and describes her so well.

Wherever you are in your journey remember we’ve still got time to realize our brightest and best dreams. Another song lyric comes to mind, “These Are The Good Old Days.” Let us enjoy them and make the most of them as our Emily did. I first wrote “my Emily” but after sharing her with others I find “our Emily” more fitting.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly (Official Video)

Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly (Official Video)