Legacies

Almost no one I know will be remembered 100 years from now, at least not directly. In that amount of time, even the stories that we generate (assuming we generate any worth telling) will fade from memory and the essence of who we were will lose its uniqueness and blend into the eternal ocean of human memory.

If asked what their legacy will be, most people would answer their children. Parents seek, whether consciously or subconsciously, to transfer their hopes, dreams, ideals and worldviews into their children and pass along all those traits about themselves that they feel are worthy of being preserved. In doing so, they hope their children will fare better than they did; financially, emotionally, spiritually. It's a truism that no one should be ashamed of, as its as much practical DNA as it is egoism. Faced with the inevitability of our own deaths, we quite naturally seek to mitigate that eventuality by "living on" through our own progeny.

If you are childless, you might answer that your legacy will be your work. Artists works echo down through the ages, inspiring countless new generations to think and feel and imagine all aspects of the human condition. Founders of huge corporations hope that the jobs and income their progenies generate will have a lasting effect on their communities that will reverberate into the future. Scientists, philosophers and teachers hope their works will inspire future generations and provide keys understanding the world around us that will affect us all for ages to come.

But what of the rest of us, who are childless and whose jobs provide little else than income and security? How can we hope to achieve any kind of immortality, bereft of the normal cultural avenues of doing so? Are we all doomed to be tossed into's history's trashbin, forgotten and unvalued?

I would submit the answer to this is "no", at least "no, we don't HAVE to be." While I like to think that I am also a physical part of my mother's legacy, my memory of her also serves as evidence that legacies can be more more subtle, yet no less powerful, than many would suspect. Her legacy to me is more than just fair skin, brown hair, poor eyesight and a weakness for underdogs. She passed along to me a feeling of absolute love and acceptance that is every bit as tangible to me as a house, a car, or cash. Everywhere I walk I am enveloped in the warm, soft, powerful glow of her love. This feeling buoys me when I'm depressed, empowers me when I'm feeling weak or helpless, and motivates me when I get lazy. In short, it's one more way she lives on through me.

Do I need children to be able to pass this feeling along to others? I don't think so. Certainly it's easier to transfer such feelings to your own child, but I'd like to think that I can pass along this essence of my mother to others in my life, regardless of their precise relation to me. I can listen to friends who need an ear, embolden those who need it, defend those who are defenseless, encourage those who feel worthless and forgotten. My mother will have lived on through me (and no doubt, through others as well) and I'll hopefully live on through the memory of those whose lives I've touched.

That's the goal, anyway. I don't pretend to have even come close to earning immortality of any kind, and most likely, won't for a very long time. But the point remains that everything touches everything else, and if the touch is powerful and memorable enough, the feeling gets transferred and achieves a life of its own.

One hundred years from now, perhaps no one will remember my mother's name or who she was. But if those who follow her in life's wake honor who and what she was, the chain reaction that her presence created can truly echo through the ages, and in this way, she will never be gone from this earth. In this way, perhaps none of us will.