WHAT IS MY LEGACY?

A legacy is like your bread-crumb trail. It leads people back to your goodness, your ideas, the meaning you brought to their life and the love you blew around your life like a bubble-maker.

Go the funeral of great and exalted men, and many people attend because of convention or duty, but far fewer come to express love and respect.

The legacy of a person is always strongly tied to what they hoped to achieve in life. Sometime the legacy is quirky and small, but it lives on in the people it embraced.  Many years ago, at a terrible restaurant in New Westminster, an elderly and rather worse-for-the wear waitress named Claire passed on her very wry wisdom to teenagers who nobody understood. She herself had run away as a young girl from an adoptive home where she had been mistreated and or ignored. She knew what she was talking about. As a social worker, I would wonder about all the unreachable kids Claire reached. When they ran away, they went to talk to Claire over a plate of really weird food at the restaurant. (She wouldn’t eat her free meal sso they could.) Those teens, now adults with their own children still speak of Claire. 

For me, the legacy of a good man who mentored me never fades. He  was plain spoken, not particularly well educated and sold me groceries when I was in University. This man always told me that to make change, to be part of revolutionary new things, you had to “ commit to fire”. Do the thing with all your might, don’t budge for a moment and keep your eyes straight on your goal.  He said his dad presided over one of the reading rooms in pre-revolutionary Russia which assisted bright, hand picked lower class children to read.  Reading rooms  weren’t like libraries, because they weren’t fully public. His father had luckily been educated as a child by the Greek Orthodox church. He focused on reading as an escape from grinding poverty and was able to make his way out of the country as an interpreter. My friend and his family were welcomed to Shanghai as were many other White Russians. The family became part of a house-boat dwelling community of artisans, musicians, singers and writers.  As a child his life was enriched by the beautiful things of culture, but frequently everyone in the group were near starvation. He remembered a sweet potato being shredded up so many people could have a nosh.  That he said, focused him on his love of the green grocery business where he could feed himself , his family and meet the wants of the local neighbourhood. He owned farm property and grew much of the produce which he sold.  The way he displayed his fruits and vegetables was art. He said he was the Michelangelo of vegetable stacking. Probably true.  The legacy of kindness is the best. In our lifetimes we meet so many people that leave indelible marks on our minds and our hearts.  The owners of these legacies always have time for someone who is a little sad, advice for someone who may be a little lost and an abundance of their heart to share. It is a much deeper legacy than wealth or fame to be  someone who walks a little higher off the earth  and scales the mountains to reach his or her own truths.

Let our legacy emerge from our daily lives, not a grandiose “thing” or achievement.  Embrace those who need you and remember to need those you embrace. We are all part of the same pilgrimage to wherever we are headed. Make firm steps and hold hands.