In whatever you do, remember your last days. Sirach 7:36
The words jumped off the page and slapped me across the face. “You’re going to die! What will you leave behind?” They shocked me, but they made me think.
“What will you leave behind?” The word “legacy” came to mind. A legacy is something that a person leaves behind by which they can be remembered. When you don’t have children, an established charitable foundation or a public monument dedicated in your honor, what can your legacy be?
As for my own legacy, the words of Shannon Alder might be a good place to start. “Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” The only part of that sentiment that really scares me to death is the part “the stories they share about you.”
However, Oscar Wilde may have been right when he said, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
The legacy I wish to leave behind may be outlined in one line of an old prayer that I say almost every week when I visit the nursing home. It is called “Learning Christ.” It is a prayer that a dear friend, Marea Gardner, introduced me to in her final days.
“May no one be less good for having come within my influence.” Yes, that’s it! I want my legacy to be the fact that the people who crossed my path left better off!
My prayer, then, going forward can be summed up in the words of that prominent Quaker missionary from the early 1800s, Stephen Grellet. “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
“What will you leave behind?” Since I don’t have children, probably not much. However, I do like to think that some of my “encouraging words” might continue to live on for a while after I am gone because I took the time to publish them in little spiritual reading books.
In my home, I have a wall of framed book covers that I have been calling my “baby pictures.” I have thirty-one “babies” in all.
It’s not the number of books that count, however, it is the “encouraging words” in them that really count. The words of Maya Angelou come to mind. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
This is the legacy I want.
Sentiments such as: “He made me feel good about myself.” “He always offered me an ‘encouraging word.’ ” “I was better off from knowing him.”
What will you leave behind? What will your legacy be?
Fr. J. Ronald Knott
To read more from Father Knott, visit his blog: FatherKnott.com.
