Funerals have a way of making you reflect on your own mortality, don’t they? I went to one this week and will go to another next week.
I wonder: What will people say about me when I’m gone? Would anybody come to my funeral? What is the legacy I am leaving? How would my family sum up my life in an hour? Did I make a difference? Could people look at my life and know what I value?
Dying is the 100% universal experience for all humankind — even more universal than taxes. Since we generally don’t know when our time is up, it’s never too early to think about the legacy we want to leave behind.
Steve Jobs gave a commencement address to graduating students after he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He told them that for 33 years, he asked himself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”
Clayton Christensen wrote in his book “How Will You Measure Your Life?”: “When I have my interview with God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage — a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had. These are the metrics that matter in measuring my life.”
Arthur Brooks, author, speaker and professor, wrote a book called “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.” He asked his readers to ask themselves these questions:
- Do you define your self-worth in terms of your job title or professional position?
- Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power or prestige?
- Do you fail to see clearly — or are you uncomfortable with — what comes after your last professional successes?
- Is your “retirement plan” to go on and on without stopping?
- Do you dream about being remembered for your professional successes?
Those accomplishments, impressive though they may be on one level, are not the keys to happiness and deep purpose. Brooks talks about a Roman statesman and philosopher who believed three things about older age.
“First, that it should be dedicated to service, not goofing off. Second, our greatest gift later in life is wisdom, in which learning and thought create a worldview that can enrich others. Third, our natural ability at this point is counsel: mentoring, advising, and teaching others, in a way that does not amass worldly rewards of money, power, or prestige.”
When I think about what I want to leave behind, I know it’s not money (we don’t have any — raising kids is expensive!), and I sure hope it’s not clutter! I’ve been working on “Swedish death cleaning” for several years now so I am (hopefully) not leaving a house filled with stuff my kids don’t want.
I am interested in leaving stories and photos behind. I’m always impressed when I attend a funeral and there are large photo displays, spanning a lifetime of memories. One of the questions I always ask myself is, “Could I find photos to display if someone in my family died this week?” and “Could my family find photos to display if I died this week?” The answers are maybe, and almost certainly not.
I’ve started trying to gather photos into one place online. Digital photos and scanned hard-copy photos going back more than 40 years (in other words, a long-term project) are on my phone, on old hard drives, in boxes, in bags and lying loose. Even gathering them is a project in itself, then going to scan them means making an appointment at a local family history center, gathering photos and a thumb drive, driving there, scanning, copying, gathering up the photos and documents, and heading back home. Then, I need to tag, catalog and store the photos. Memories fade and stories can be lost if they are not written or recorded somewhere. I have photos from my grandmothers where I have no idea who’s who. Even I sometimes have to look for other contextual clues on photos to know which child is in the picture.
A couple of years ago, I started to show my daughter the computer program I’m using to store those photos (with multiple backups). I told her, “I want to do this now, before …” as she interrupted me: “No! Don’t say it!” “Before I die,” I finished. Last year, I got uncomfortably close and none of us were ready. A year later and I am still not ready.
While photo memories are important, even they are not the top of my list. When I die, I want my family to know that I loved them and that I did my best. I want them to know that my faith was foundational to my literal survival when we went through some very hard things. I want them to remember me when they are praised for their work ethic, when they are civically engaged, when they follow their passions, and when they speak up for the marginalized and oppressed.
When my obituary is written, I hope it can honestly be said that I “walked the walk and talked the talk” of living my life in alignment with my values. I hope it says that I loved deeply, that I was fascinated by other people and their stories, that I prioritized service and that I was a lifelong learner. I want it to say that I found my voice and used it, that I made a difference and that I left the world a better place.
And, as long as time allows, I want to write stories my family will want to read, complete with photos.
Originally published in the Deseret News
