By Elizabeth Farina

The purple branches glowed with twinkling white lights in the corner of the living room reminding family and friends of Emily Dale Bowman’s contagious, fun spirit. Various ornaments weighed the branches, each a reminder of the 16-year-old’s life which ended days after a car accident in May 2007.

Two black and white roadside signs wait under the tree to later be installed and serve as daily reminders in Walton Park subdivision and at the LaPrade Library on Hull Street Road for folks to drive safely. The Bowman family purchased the signs through the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Roadside Memorial Sign program. 

For Emily’s family, parents Allen and Mitzi Bowman and their son Jamie, the Christmas tree is a bittersweet reminder of the teenage girl who embraced life through dance, being creatively humorous, and loving her family and her friends.

Thomas Dale senior Emily Hodges, a close friend, added two new ornaments during the Saturday evening “Emily’s better-late-than-never Christmas Party” at the Bowman home on Jan. 3. A miniature coffee cup adorned one branch as another, a small Cheerios cereal box with a Santa hat, sparked memories of the teen’s famous habits. “Emily was a big cereal eater. Dry. Wet. It didn’t matter. She just had to have her cereal,” Mitzi said.

“Every other day I’d fix oatmeal and she’d eat it on her way to the bus,” Allen remembered. “She’d have oatmeal or cereal and I’d cut up strawberries or whatever. She ate very healthy.”
Mitzi remembers Emily’s love of desserts. “She had to have her sweet tooth massaged every once in a while,” she said.

More voices are heard arriving at the home’s back door, a well-known entry for close friends. Mitzi embraces the difficulty of seeing her friends grow up. “She’s forever 16. Now, they’re all almost 18, and getting ready to graduate, and it’s like she should be there with them. But it’s just something we have to get used to,” she said.
Allen and Mitzi look at the tree in search of another favorite ornament created last year. “We had this party we called ‘Emily’s better-late-than-never Christmas’ party because my daughter was always late,” Mitzi explained. “It’s a celebration of Emily and all of her friends. We asked them to bring an ornament, if they wanted to, and obviously a bunch of them did. This is her special tree,” she said. “I like the ones with the pictures the best, of course.”

Allen agreed the pictures are a favorite and then recalled another. He lifted from a lower branch a perfectly round glass ornament decorated with gold lettering that was handcrafted by another of Emily’s friends. “It’s somewhat of a poem. It says, ‘Death is nothing at all. I am. I and you are. I am I and you are you.’ I’ll get choked up if I continue,” as the father paused.

The first holiday without Emily would have been more difficult without the support of family and Emily’s many friends. Her dance group from Jessica Morgan School of Dance surprised the family one night with caroling and hot chocolate. That spontaneous surprise and others’ compassion has helped the family’s grief.  “We wouldn’t have gotten through it like we have,” Mitzi said.
Allen and Mitzi are deeply grateful of the community’s compassion since the accident. “We are impressed about how much her friends and classmates thought of her as an honest and caring person. In today’s society, that makes us very proud,” Allen said. 

He recalled the day following the accident, while Emily was at MCV Hospital, a student created tee shirts with the picture of Emily being silly dressed as a Supergirl for Halloween. Several wore the tee during a prayer service.  “It was incredible those kids thought of that. I don’t think we knew how well liked she was and how many people looked up to her,” he said. 

More guests arrive with additional greetings. Fellow dancer Sarah Quigley, who last year created an ornament with Emily’s photo topping a tube of mascara, remembers the long-time friend definitely reapplying the makeup at competitions. “We could be late for a dance and she’d be like, ‘Wait. I got to go do makeup.’ And we’d be looking for her in the back and she’d be sitting there doing makeup,” Quigley remembered.   

More guests arrive as Allen refers to the VDOT signs in memory of their daughter. He hopes both will be installed in the near future. Mitzi agreed the signs serve two purposes in remembering Emily and reminding people to drive safely. “It’s another way of keeping her name out there, reminding people, my daughter existed. One reason to have this party is to get her friends together and let them enjoy each other and remember Emily,” Mitzi said.

The family has also established two scholarships at Thomas Dale High School, where Emily was a student in the specialty center for the dance program.  Donations to continue the scholarships can be made to the Emily Dale Bowman Scholarship at Central Virginia Bank, P.O. Box 29, Powhatan, VA 23139.

Mitzi said, “That was her life – dance. She was an honor student and just a wonderful girl. We miss her very much, but I know she’s in a better place.”