What am I leaving behind?
Looking back over the past year, the most tiring part, physically and emotionally, was clearing out my Mum’s flat. Whilst Mum and Dad had done a LOT of clearing out before they downsized, it doesn’t take long to build up more stuff, more detritus. Even after my Dad passed and Mum spent months slowly working her way through his office and belongings, there was still a mountain of belongings to sort through, to donate, to recycle, to keep, to trash.
It was hard work, sorting through it all, making decisions of what to keep – most of which boiled down to diaries, letters and photos – and all the time wondering how this diminishing pile of collected items could possibly have defined their lives. So many memories boiled down to so few things.
Of course, it didn’t, the items we buy and own don’t actually hold that power precisely because they are transient, yet it made me think about the eulogies I wrote for both my parents, the lives they led, the ideals and morals they upheld, the ethics they felt bound by, and I can see for both of them one thing that was already dawning on me.
I am their legacy. My son is their legacy. My nieces are their legacy.
It’s a daunting thought.
What is a legacy anyway?
OK, let’s bust out a definition:
“A legacy is a lasting gift passed from one person or generation to another, encompassing not just material possessions but also the experiences, achievements, and values that define a person’s life. It reflects the impact an individual has had on others and the world around them, including their actions, beliefs, and contributions.”
In my younger years I heard talk of legacy and left it aside, presuming it was only for the people in the world who were making a difference, who could move mountains if they wished, they leaders of my time be they local and immediate, or world renowned and distant. The latter is where most of us spend our time looking of course; I can remember the hope that filled the world when Obama was elected (and the despair that we are all feeling at the current incumbent of that office).
We look to sporting heroes, movie stars, pop sensations and place them on a pedestal, assuring their legacies through records, achievements, and popularity.
But how do we judge those closer to home, how do we judge ourselves?
What is my legacy, is it really my son? Is it really that simple.
And obviously when I say simple, I mean mind-boggling, terrifyingly, thrillingly, complex.
Physical legacy
Thinking back on the plethora of my parents stuff I had to sort through, I am keen to keep my meaningful belongings to a minimum and if at all possible offer some signposts on things that may/could/should be taken forward.
There are some physical items that hold meaning for me, I have kept the large wooden barometer that used to hang in my Grandparents house in Rutherglen; a large 3 story home with a long entrance hall, that dog-legged round the foot of the staircase. It used to hang near the front door, next to the coats tand, itself an antique with a large warped mirror and intricate carvings atop multiple large folding hooks for coats and hats, and upon leaving the house you’d stop here and tap the barometer to ensure you knew which way the weather was heading. I was in and out of that house every weekend (and more) for 18 years, and it’s one of the most vivid memories I have, one that floods my senses whenever I see the barometer now (currently in a cupboard, sadly).
But this item, which holds so many rich memories for me, will likely mean nothing to my son. We don’t have it hanging near the front door (and in any case we use the back door almost exclusively). Should we hang it somewhere? Would that allow him to attach his own memories and add to the legacy the barometer already holds? Is that how it works, with memories being piled up on memories to give an enhanced level of gravitas to a physical object?
Is that really how a legacy can be created and maintained?
Values legacy
When my Dad passed, as I mentioned in his eulogy, the overarching sentiment was that he was a good man. It gave me great solace at the time and, even without the usual lens afforded to such comments (does anyone really speak ill of the recently dead?), I knew it to be true.
Yet I now find myself wondering how that came to be? A life lived with good humour, with generosity and kindness, those things I can see and, if I’m honest, take some comfort from as I hope that I am living my life in a similar manner, although perhaps without the outreach my Dad had as a teacher, a performer, as well as his involvement in the local Rotary and Burns Clubs. He was known to many and all held him in the same regard. If that isn’t a legacy, what is?
My Mum was similarly viewed and for similar reasons. Known to many as a teacher, her involvement in the local Inner Wheel gave her a wonderful outlet for her natural tendencies to organise and put others first. Mum was all about the small things, a wee minding (a small gift), a thank you note posted; she kept a stock of cards covering all the major life occasions in a drawer ‘just in case’.
I come from good stock, of that I am both sure and very aware of, my upbringing was a good one full of many privileges. That in itself should be apparent because, let’s be honest, it’s really only those with a comfortable life without many challenges, whose days are easy and for whom achievements are that little closer than others – I don’t have to deal with racism or sexism, my gender isn’t questioned, and I am able bodied – that have lots of energy and time to consider what impression we are leaving behind and how, indeed should it even be considered, my legacy will be noted.
And yet some people, regardless of privilege or status, in times regardless of the lack of either, will forge a legacy without even considering it, purely through their determination alone.
I have no grand hopes or thoughts in this regard, I am not exceptional in any way, I will not be remembered in history books. It is only the smallest percentage of any population who are remembered in this way and fewer still who transcend the idea of legacy altogether and become legend. I have written on this before, I am, and am happy to remain, master of nothing but knowledgeable of much.
That said, there is the small matter of honour and ego. If my son is my legacy – and therefore my grandparents legacy, and their parents before and so on down through the lineage – am I doing a good enough job in giving him the skills, tools, and emotional capability to have a chance of understanding his own place in the world whilst flourishing within it? Is it even fair to consider the idea of the passing of my legacy to him? I know the slow rise of the burden that the idea of legacy can hold will start to approach him as he grows older, just as it seems to be doing with me, so who am I to add to it?
Digital Legacy
I’ve had this blog for a long long time. It’s been through three changes of platform – hand crafted HTML to Blogger to WordPress – some changes of focus, including splitting out my professional (technical communications) posts, and the fiction posts, into their own blogs with their own domains (long since lapsed and the content merged back into this blog), and so many layout and template changes I’ve lost count.
My approach to blogging has changed throughout the years as well; from the early, short sharp silly/pointless posts – the joy of Blogger was the immediacy – through to my current more focussed posts. I’ve hosted blog meets in London and Edinburgh, been in newspaper articles, have a quote in the Essential Blogging book by Cory Doctorow, and on and on it goes. I still have the first domain name I used for my blog – www.snowgoon.co.uk – too. If my blog isn’t part of my legacy, what is?
And then there is the tens of thousands of digital artefacts to consider; photos, documents, diary entries, notes, and emails. What do they say about me as a collective? What do they contribute to how I am viewed when I’m no longer here? I should curate, delete and get prepared as, of all the items of my legacy, these seem the most achievable to tackle, or perhaps just the most under my immediate control.
What is my legacy?
I’m not sure. I’m not sure how much of my parent’s legacy I actually carry, if any at all. Perhaps instead it is just another thing, an item on the pile, that needs to be dealt with somehow. Maybe in time it will fade into the trash heap of life, or maybe it will be carried with me, captured in some physical item or another.
Regardless, there is the small, and shrinking, matter of my own immediate legacy. What am I leaving behind? What will people speak of when I am turned to ash?
And here I will stop for fear of starting to try and write my own eulogy and that is a step too far. Suffice to say that I know I will leave behind far too much lego, an old barometer, and hopefully a view of someone who was kind and thoughtful to all despite his flaws.
