How Do We Want To Be Remembered?

I always thought that legacies were people who got into college because a parent or older sibling was a graduate.  Until lately.

Since I became a grandparent, I’ve been thinking about my own legacy, how I want to be remembered.  For eight years, I have been writing letters to our grandchildren.  They don’t live near us, so I generally write them when we come home from a visit.  I tell them about us and about them and how they have changed. 

They won’t see the letters until they (and we) are much older, but there will be a record of those magic moments of getting to know them, a legacy of sorts. 

A few years ago, our son Jeremy videotaped Peter and me separately on his front porch, each talking about our life and our times to be shown to the grandkids in twenty years. So, thanks to their father, they will have our faces as well as our words.

How I wish I had something like that from my parents!  What I would give to have their reflections on their lives when they were the age I am now.

On Monday, thanks to a newspaper article by Jane Brody, http://nyti.ms/AAqz0k, I read a review of a new book about legacy called Thirty Lessons for Living:  Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.  The book summarizes the views of more than 1,000 Americans as compiled by the Cornell Legacy Project.  Topics include Aging, Marriage, Parenting, Careers and more as viewed by more than 1,000 older Americans.

A legacy that can benefit us right now.

Comments

[helena grace]

My 90 year old father recorded on an old tape cassette his experiences of growing up, which I want to have transferred to a CD. He's also having typed up the love letters between my mother and himself written 69 years ago. I feel so fortunate!