Do you catch yourself, as you get older, saying things your parents might have said? I've gotten whiplash snapping my head around to see if my folks were standing there (many years since passed), after spilling phrases or comments from my lips, knowing I could not have POSSIBLY said something like THAT! For an instant, I could swear they were right behind me! You know the phrases; "what's wrong with this younger generation?" or "when I was YOUR age....." or my Dad's favorite "well, for crying out loud!!" Things we swore we'd never say in our lifetimes, now here we stand, a reincarnation of our folks! As scary as that sounds, it's those little idioms, phrases, vernacular and idiosyncrasies that bind us to them, the lessons they taught us, and the continuation of their legacies. It's how we lovingly (mostly!) remember them.
So, my question for you today (and a constant nagging for me) is how do we want to be remembered? After the passing of some incredible stalwarts of my life this past year, beautiful souls who nourished mind, body and spirit of all who came in contact with them, those remembrances came flooding back, and continue to, when I catch myself uttering a phrase or mannerism that embodied who they were. It's how we remember them, and that's why they are never really gone from us.
Which brings me to my conclusion, and my original question; how do you want to be remembered? Are you striving to be the family disciplinarian? Or maybe the most spiritual? A titan of business and industry? Perhaps you'll be remembered as the most charitable? Or, the most miserly. Maybe you'll be remembered as the heart, soul and center of the family, or maybe the recluse who just wanted to go their own way and be left alone. Unless you are wildly talented or wealthy, and you can change a narrative after you are gone, the vast majority of us will have to settle for establishing our "legacies" while we are still here. So, this takes us down the road to examining our lives as we get older, and that invariably reserects some of those old whiplash inducing phrases our folks and friends taught us years ago.
For me, besides the obvious wish of wanting to be remembered as a good father, husband, son, brother and friend, there are two that I would want to add to those reminiscences.
I want to live to be 100 years old before I die, and have them carved on my headstone "he was cut down in the prime of his life"!
I want to be remembered as someone who walked through the fires of hell, and came through it with buckets of cold water for those still consumed by the fire!
Remembering each of you always! Blessings for a happy and healthy 2023 for all!
JD
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