Women over 60 consider the legacy you leave

14 Comments

1. I love the photos, illustrations and stories about Mr. B’s grandparents! Thank you for sharing them.

2. You are so welcome! Glad you enjoyed!

3. Good Friday morning Pam,
   I so enjoyed reading and what you had to share about Mr. B’s grandfather that he never had the privilege of meeting and his Nanny. Both exceptional people. It’s such a huge loss when we did not get to meet our important family members when they pass away so young.
   I love the picture of you in the red dress, it shouts to the roof tops you are full of JOY and happiness.
   Me, my legacy that I will leave behind is what others say, and I believe to be true.
   Thoughtful, kind, giving, generous, creative, determined.

4. I hope this reply goes through to you, Pam.
   I think I’ll be remembered for surviving septic shock ( kidney stone that was septic) and was intubated/ on a ventilator along with 24/7 dialysis for 11 days. But I survived. Before this I was on a fitnessk program ( irony) eating healthy only foods, exercising regularly- yoga and Tai Chi too. It might have been what saved me along with great medical care.
   Perhaps that will be my legacy?

5. I hope this reply goes through to you, Pam.
   I think I’ll be remembered for surviving septic shock ( kidney stone that was septic) and was intubated/ on a ventilator along with 24/7 dialysis for 11 days. But I survived. Before this I was on a fitnessk program ( irony) eating healthy only foods, exercising regularly- yoga and Tai Chi too. It might have been what saved me along with great medical care.
   Perhaps that will be my legacy?

6. I went to the funeral of a cousin, yesterday. I also lost a cousin about a month ago. After listening to what children, grandchildren, friends, and family spoke of about these women, I have been wondering about what mine will say of me. A very sobering thought.

7. My illustration would show a woman simply but neatly dressed with a cross around her neck & likely a book in her hand. I hope my legacy would be one of kindness, caring & strength.

8. What an interesting and challenging question. I previously worked at a funeral home and I have often thought of how I might be remembered. I’ve told my children: put me in the casket dressed in the many clothing items you have given me and put a string around my neck that holds the cards you’ve given me with your words of affirmation. My children were the investment of my lifetime and so very dear to me. So a picture of how I might be remembered? I’d be dressed quite eclectically with a unique neck adornment 🙂

9. We had a very powerful woman in our community. Ahead of her time really. Designed and planted a large city park, personally, on her hands and knees. She was the county executive, for decades, when most women were stay at home mothers. Quietly mentored other young women. What is she remembered for? If you mention her name today, most people would say, “shocking blue hair”. All her achievements reduced to her appearance. Be careful how you’re remembered.

10. What an interesting topic today! I hope the ladies will continue to weigh in as they are ready. For me, having so recently lost my mother, and coming up on losing my best friend nearly six years ago now, I feel like this notion of legacy, paired with a foundational hope to save loved ones some of the pain inherent in loss, is hovering in my thoughts all the time. If I can help now by showing my thankfulness even in the face of my losses, then hopefully when it is my time to go, everyone I loved will say, ” she would want us to be glad for what time and experiences we had with her.” And what were those? – lots of beautiful music, wonderful mealtimes together, some exotic trips enjoying other cultures, and lots, TONS of love given without measure.

11. Part of my legacy, I think, will be the number of students I have taught over the years who have gone on to college and become pharmacists, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, engineers, teachers, lawyers, various other occupations. There was a time when every pharmacist in town had been in my chemistry and physics classes. I was blessed to teach those upper-level students who may have chosen those careers without my influence, but they tell me I made a difference in their lives and education. I still have wonderful relationships with many of them, and they always say what a kind, sympathetic, caring, dedicated person I was. This might not have been the direction you wanted us to go, but this is something many have told me about my life and relationship to them.

12. My Husband got assigned the “pandemic” goal of scanning all our family photos so they’d be more accessible to our children/grandchildren. The pandemic has come and gone and he’s sent two boxes off and there are probably 3-4 more boxes needing to be assembled. I look at the photos before we seal them off and edit the photos with an eye to “what story do these tell?”

    The things I know about my Grandparents are embodied in stories. My Town Grandmother reused mouse traps. She pried the squished mouse off the trap, washed it off and put it out again. My Farm Grandmother didn’t, saying “the mice won’t go near a trap that’s had mouse blood on it, toss it.” It’s a weird thing to remember about my Grandmothers, but when I heard my Mother tell the story -she agreed with her MIL on this one and tosses the trap mouse and all- it stuck with me.

    I think it’s OK to adjust memories to tell memorable stories. Stay true to the ancestor’s personality, while spinning a tale that a child will remember.

13. It has taken me a few days to articulate my thoughts on this very significant topic, but I’m glad you brought it to our attention. When my mother passed last fall, I had some time to work on her celebration of life service because we decided to hold it on what would have been her 98th birthday three weeks later. In talking with her pastor about what her legacy was, we could have gone in many different directions. She was a child of the Great Depression, raised in hard circumstances by stern parents on a small farm in rural Texas. Those were the days before “parenting skills” were a thing; you tried to keep your kids alive the best you could. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, but she sometimes parented me in ways that felt cruel because she just didn’t know any better. Obviously those weren’t the stories I wanted to tell, so I thought about the good things I learned from her, the greatest of which was the importance of service to others. In the early 1960’s we lived in then-rural Texas next door to a working dairy farm that also housed a business that built wooden pallets. There was an old farmhouse, a dairy barn and a newer, larger farmhouse still under construction. I had just turned four the summer that the workshop housing the pallet business caught fire. We were outside the city limits, but the nearby city fire department came out, took a look, and drove off, leaving it to burn. It was windy and the fire was spreading, threatening the other structures. Soon the volunteer fire department from a small nearby community showed up, and they fought that fire all afternoon, pumping water from the stock pond when their pumper truck ran dry. When my mama heard the news, we went to the grocery story and bought hamburger meat, mustard. buns and lemonade. This was huge, because our budget was tight and we definitely weren’t eating hamburgers. She wasn’t the greatest cook, but she made ten pounds of hamburger meat into several dozen 1/4 pound burgers and had me mix up the lemonade in a five-gallon bucket. We drove over there and took all that to feed the volunteer firefighters and the dairy farmer’s five daughters, who were friends of mine. Even at that age, I realized that this was sacrificial giving, and that memory is still so strong sixty-one years later. Following her example, I have tried to look for opportunities to be of service to others my entire adult life. When I was conducting freshman orientation at a large state university for many summers, I prayed each morning that if a student needed extra help that they would come to me and that I would be worthy of their trust. Over the years I “adopted” quite a few of them and helped them in ways that would have gotten me fired: buying a suit for a professional school interview, helping with groceries, making a car payment here and there, recruiting assistance from my Sunday School class in furnishing an apartment for an orphaned student who was accepted to pharmacy school in a city where he knew no one, getting water service restored for a student whose dad was in prison for things he did to her, and so many others. Every one of those kids went on to succeed beyond my wildest dreams and most fervent prayers for them. I was often the only adult who believed in them or encouraged them. Today they are the Chief of Pharmacy over four Dallas hospitals, the owner of a successful corporation flying his own plane all over the southwest to reach water quality clients more quickly, an epidemiologist who created and maintains the state “disease dashboard” online for the Texas Department of Health, a third year medical resident after a decade of med school rejections, a critical care nurse, a physician’s assistant, an ICU physician, and the head of cybersecurity for a large division of AT&T. I don’t feel like I should get any credit for how they turned out, but they still invite me to their civic orchestra concerts, graduations, weddings, baby christenings, housewarmings, and other celebrations that say “we made it!” Hopefully they are all a part of my legacy. These days I volunteer at my church, stocking our food pantry that feeds around 2,500 low-income neighbors each month, answering phone calls requesting help in the office, and serving a sit-down family-style meal to homeless guests every Thursday night. None of that is huge, but my efforts combined with others might make a real difference. If any readers don’t feel like they have a legacy, try serving others on a regular basis. I promise that you will be the one who benefits most from your efforts! I hope that when the time comes for my life to be celebrated that “service to others” is the legacy for which I am remembered.

14. Thank you, Lori, for taking the time to share these precious moments in your life. I am catching up from the weekend and so appreciate everyone who shared.

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