Legacy is not a word that I’ve even begun to
contemplate. Legacy is outweighed by
things like car payments, birthday parties, doing the dishes, carpool duty, and
walking the dog twice a day. Who has
time for a legacy?
Yet, today I’m thinking about my legacy. Not today’s legacy though – I sincerely hope
I have many more years before anyone has to really consider my legacy. However, an introspective piece of radio I
heard yesterday got me thinking about “legacy”.
Dan
Savage, a fairly controversial sex-advice columnist (are there any other
kinds?), spoke in front of a live theater audience, which was simulcast on
radio (it was recorded about 2 years ago; however, this was the first time I’d heard
it). Whatever your views on Dan may be,
his monologue was not controversial at all, nor did it regard his “expertise”. Instead,
he spoke about his mother.
You can listen to the whole show to gain
all Dan’s insights, but the essence of his communication about how a mother’s
love transcends the barriers of circumstance.
Dan’s mother was a devout Catholic.
Dan is a gay man who, along with his partner of 14 years, has adopted a
son. Dan’s mother accepted her son life,
loved her son and grandson, understood her son while never abandoning her own
strong faith. It’s a beautiful story of
her devotion and Dan’s reaction to her death.
Which brings me back to the idea of a legacy… What will my
kids think about me when my time comes? It’s a morbid thought, but, let’s be
honest – it’s going to happen one day.
Hopefully, “one day” is many days from now, but since birth certificates
don’t come with expiration dates, we’ll never know for sure.
There are a finite number of days between now and then. And, I know this will be shocking to those of
you who know me well, I’m a little bit of a worrier. And the antidote to worrying, for me, is
planning. So, welcome to Legacy Planning
101:
Step 1: Make Memories
This is a bit tricky.
For a lot of us, when we think about “making memories”, we assume it has
to be a big memory, like the time we went to Disneyland and my brother puked on
Space
Mountain (which is actually a made-up memory – my brother never puked on Space
Mountain. But I might have told all his
friends that he did). When I think back
on my own childhood, it’s not the mega-vacation memories that jump
forward. Instead, I remember things like
sitting on lawn chairs in my open garage next to my dad as it rained. He sat and listened to the rain as he smoked
a cigar. Very quiet moments. I loved those moments. And I frequently sit on our covered patio in
thunderstorms and just listen. I hope my
kids will remember those kinds of moments, too.
Step 2: Create
Traditions
Thanksgiving day is my favorite of the year. I know a lot of people feel that way about
Christmas day. My mom talks about her
memories of her family every year around Passover. The traditions of those days
are powerful. It’s been important in our
family that our kids know the agenda for every major holiday, including their
birthdays, every year. And they do. They
know that Christmas Eve means opening one present before bed – invariably, pajamas
to wear to bed on that very night. They
know that Christmas morning means breakfast strata
after the first session of opening presents (and the second session invariably
commencing as soon as the kids have stuffed their faces as quickly as they can)
. They know we open presents from
youngest to oldest, one apiece until we’re all out. They know we’ll have stuffed shells for
dinner that night. They love the tradition as much as the presents. So do I.
Step 3: Be The Person
You Want Them to Remember
Last week, we had a particularly tough morning. The baby wasn’t feeling well and, as a
result, neither my wife nor I got as much sleep as we would have liked. I was tired and irritable when driving the
older three to school. And they were in
rare form, fighting about every last detail of every seemingly trivial activity
of the morning. When all three were
being nasty to each other about, of all things, a Pokémon game they were playing, the
proverbial straw broke. I laid into
them. I have a long fuse, but you don’t
want to be there when I finally go off.
And that day, I went off big. I
was in rare form, first yelling then simply lecturing condescendingly to an
audience too afraid to participate in the conversation. Ten minutes later, when the craziness had finally
vacated my brain, I pulled into the school parking lot, stopped the kids from
getting out, and sincerely apologized.
Not for the content of my message, for I deeply believe that “taking
care of each other” is our family mission, but for the delivery method. I didn’t want my kids to think that being
passionate about a message is reason enough to yell and scream about it. It’s the least elegant way to communicate passionately,
actually. I failed in delivering my
message, and in doing so, abused the trust they put in me as a parent. I apologized to the kids. I let them know that I still felt that
fighting with each other is wrong on a lot of levels, but I was wrong to have
yelled at them about it. I hope they
remember the guy who communicated that
message.
Step 4: Model a
Healthy Lifestyle
Admittedly, this one is the toughest for me. I know I have a long road ahead of me to get
this one right. And, I know that I need
to hurry down that road before my kids start to follow their own wrong path.
I don’t know anyone without a vice or two… or eight. For some, its smoking. For others, its drinking or recreational drug
use. There are people who regularly
“text and drive” or who still won’t wear a seatbelt. And, for me, for as long as I can remember,
it’s been weight.
It’s one thing to risk your own health, but quite another
when your habits start to impact your kids’ habits. I think about this a lot. When I was growing up, my dad was very
heavy. In his late sixties, he had a
stroke. We were lucky as it was a mild
stroke, and it served as a wake up call to him. He made changes and is now at a very healthy
weight. However, I’m not there – yet.
I don’t want my kids to follow my bad habits and have to
struggle with this issue. So, I’m
dedicating myself to fixing the problem.
I’m doing it for me, because I want to be the best role model to my kids
I can be. I haven’t been, but I’m going
to be.
Step 5: Share the
Ride
Everyday, when I first see my kids afterschool, I spend a
few minutes with each of them, talking about their day. Of course, I get the routine answers of
“nothing happened today, Dad.” But, I’ve been in the parental management game
for far too long to know answer #1 is simply a test to see if you’ll leave them
alone. And I never do. I’m persistent in asking specific questions:
What specials did you have today? What
did you do in Spanish? How was the spelling test? Who did you sit with at lunch? What did you talk about? What did you do at recess? Did your teacher say anything goofy
today? Ask enough questions and you’ll
get the real answers.
My kids know that my wife and I want to know everything –
good, bad, funny, sad. We want it
all. We want to share their
experience. We want to let them be the
star of their story. We love when they
tell us how they shine. And I hope they
think of this when they think of me later on.
I think it might be all I’m thinking about when that time comes.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, right? I’m choosing how I want those days to impact
my kids – legacy planning 101.
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