Blog 3888 – 07.15.2026
Happy Birthday, Emily!
On this day forty-six years ago my daughter Emily Elaine White was born. Thirty-two years and five days later on July 20th, 2012 she died. There is no grave stone with her name, no two dates with a dash between them to symbolize her life. She wanted a Viking Funeral and so her extended family gathered in Murray, Kentucky two years after her passing and put her ashes in a small boat and honored her wishes wearing Viking helmets and sharing stories about our time with Emily.
Emily’s dash through time and space touched many lives. I am so glad and grateful that I got to be her dad in the limited run production that in a book that I wrote about her I called, “Emily – The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along” after one of her favorite songs by Norah Jones, Seven.
A few years before Emily died I visited her in the Washington, D.C. area that she loved so much and we had lunch together in old town Alexandria. After lunch we walked around the beautiful waterfront town. One of the sites we saw was the Old Town Metrorail Station. Emily said that she often would stand there, stringed instrument in hand, playing and singing to passers by, and that some would drop money in the open guitar or ukulele case at her feet.
Emily never got to have children of her own but worked with the children and youth of her church and she did get to be an Auntie Em to her beloved nephew Travis. He has her guitar, Blondie, and I her ukulele, Goldie, that I intend to pass on to my granddaughter Emma when she is old enough to appreciate it and perhaps make music with as Emily did.
Happy Birthday, Emily!
Your friend, fellow traveler, Emily’s dad, and Emma’s Poppa,
David James White
Check out this video, “youtube dancing with spock true”
theencouragingword 