Blog 3541 – 07.15.2025

Things Left Undone

My ceiling repair project is finished. Since I put the Sheetrock compound (mud) on pretty thick in places hoping to cover my less than professional job, I let it dry an additional day before painting. I am sure my deceased Uncle Buddy, who made a good living with his Sheetrock installing and finishing business, would have gotten a big chuckle out of my final results. I am nevertheless happy, as it came out better than I thought it would and is far better than the sagging sheetrock we lived with for many years and especially the big hole in the ceiling after it finally fell down.

Today is also one of those special anniversary in my family as it marks what would have been my daughter Emily’s forty-fifth birthday had she lived.

Emily only got to have thirty-two birthdays and died but five days after that final one. On a mixed CD that she made for me for Father’s Day the year before is a song by the Indigo Girls that was a special comfort for me in the days, weeks, and months following Emily’s passing.

The song is called All That We Let In. The woo, woo, woo sounds at the beginning and at the close of the chorus’s are much like the weeping sounds that I made as I poured out my heart mourning the loss no parent ever wants to face. An early line in the song that really stands out is: “We’ve lost friends and loved ones much too young, with so much promise and things left undone.”

I quoted yesterday from one of my favorite movies An Unfinished Life which deals with a father trying to come to grips with the loss of his only son. Emily was my first child and only daughter. Grateful as I am for her younger brother, my son Jay, who is now three years older than she got to be, I wish she was still here finishing many of the dreams and things that she let undone.

Today’s song concludes: “The greatest gift of life is to know love.” Emily nailed that one and shared her gift with anyone who came along.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_ysLH4hPufXxXOCAbSc9McY3_O0fqmQ/view?usp=drivesdk

All That We Let In