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Highlands Today

Am I Leaving A Legacy?

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Joyce Minor

Published: January 6, 2008

At the start of each new year the media reports a list of people, famous and infamous, who died during the previous 12 months. Reviewing this year's list, I couldn't help but think about what it had cost each individual to make it onto that roster.

Aside from the obvious cost, (they had to die to get there), every person listed had done something notable, either admirable or ignoble. A few contributed to the advancement of medicine or science, or like Ruth Bell Graham, spiritual inspiration, leaving a legacy of healing and improvement in the quality of life for the entire planet. Each of those individuals studied long and hard, worked countless hours, and some spent fortunes of their own money to achieve a success, for which they will be remembered in encyclopedias, and scarcely anywhere else.

Some of the deceased, like Anna Nicole Smith, made the list primarily because they had managed to become incredibly wealthy in very public and unusual ways. However, they will be remembered mostly for having wasted their youth, health, and fortunes in incredibly foolish and sad ways. For that, they will, most likely, be remembered longer than the doctors and scientists.

Others, like opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, television mogul Merv Griffin, and author Kurt Vonnegut, made the list, not because of their money (even though they had tons of it), but because their lives were spent entertaining us all, spreading untold joy and pleasure around the world. Who hasn't thrilled to the golden tones of a Pavarotti aria, or whiled away countless hours matching wits with contestants on "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune?" And if you haven't read "Cat's Cradle," well, your education, not to mention your laugh-out-loud quotient, is sorely lacking. Fortunately, for all of us, each of these famous individuals left behind a body of work that will continue to entertain and educate for generations to come.

So, do you have to be famous, or talented, or publicly humiliated to be remembered? Or can just anybody leave a legacy? For that matter, what is a legacy? Is it just being remembered by someone for something? Or does it have to be more special than that? Is it something we all should aspire to, or not even bother with?

Webster defines a legacy, first of all, as "money or property left behind in a will." That's something we all could aspire to, but it leaves me with a sort of "so what" feeling. Anybody can make money. And that "legacy" can quickly disappear in the hands of careless or unscrupulous or just unlucky descendants. So, why do so many of us devote our whole lives to pursuing it?

The second definition of legacy: "something resulting from or left behind by an action, event, or person" - I find much more intriguing and inspiring.

I want to leave a legacy of family traditions, inside jokes, and bits of homegrown wisdom that will be passed down through generations of my family. My great Aunt Sarah's recipe for Sour Cream Sugar Cookies, my mother's stories about growing up dirt-poor on a farm in Northern Michigan, and my father-in-law's silly puns, endlessly repeated - those are more of a legacy to my children than any amount of money. And no one can "spend" them foolishly or fritter them away on a gamble.

All they can do is pass them down, so generations yet unborn will know they have a proud and precious heritage. Knowing they belong to something bigger than themselves - now that's a legacy.

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