Legacy

_{Summer 2023 writing class, in response to the prompt “What is your legacy?”}

Memories are ripples pushing against one another on a quiet lake – intersecting circles of love, pain, joy and growth.  So hard to make sense of until just before they completely fade away.

I spent my childhood learning my mother’s patience, adopting the self-sacrificing ethic that she embraced so generously that she did not even know its truth. If I have watched my own children struggle successfully to free themselves from this recursive pattern, that is a legacy.

I spent my youth catching a flame of passion for human justice and equality. I joined anti-war groups, embraced feminism, and married a dedicated activist from the Third World. If our raised voices of protest ever influenced policy, or added sense to someone else’s world view, then that is a legacy.

I spent my work years learning how to teach. It is an impossible assignment; you can never perfect this craft. It is an undertaking of love, of dedication, insight and recovery from failure. If I have lead dozens of young humans to stop hating math, and to gain back the self-esteem that subject should never have stolen from them, then that is perhaps my favorite legacy.

I spent my parenting years struggling to juggle a job, a household and 2 school-aged children. My own needs disappeared; I rarely remember getting enough sleep. Perhaps this was the purpose of my life; I haven’t made that call yet. But if my soul was a jug of water, I poured all of it into raising them.  Maybe my jug was too small, but they are both now good people – strong, successful, thoughtful, and playful, with a love of nature, travel and adventure. That may become their legacy.

I spent my late 50’s recovering from a brutal brawl with cancer. Because of the size of my school community, my husband’s community and my own large family,  I received hundreds of letters, dinners, gifts and encouragements. I got a requiem without even dying. If my survival has given other sufferers hope, this is a legacy I do not deserve, but will accept.

I spent my mid-60’s mourning an estrangement from my daughter. One that she needed to protect her own mental health. I waited, I sent occasional kind words, I learned to reflect on my life’s mistakes and acknowledge them, and I survived, and I still adore her. If I have shown my adult children an openness to vulnerability  and introspection that they can respect, then that is a legacy. Perhaps a painful one for me, but valuable. As the Persian poet Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”  

In my early 70’s, two sacred events occurred. My mother died and my first grandchild was born. Only a few weeks apart. My mother was a gentle soul, and it was easy to care for her in her last 3 years. My grandson, now one year old, is a ray of sunshine. He is forever smiling, he loves to make eye contact with strangers from his perch in his stroller, and if they look back, he smiles broadly and bats his eyes at them. There was never such a child in our family. If this is God’s gift to me for a life well struggled through, I am blessed. If this child is a mosaic of every person in two extended families, including a few molecules of Kathleen, then that is a sacred legacy.