What Will Your Legacy Be?

Do you ever wonder what your legacy will be?

I think about this sometimes, more so lately as I have been dealing with some (so far) non-serious health issues. I recently read about a man, a keeper for the animals in an elephant orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, who had no education, could barely read and write, but who left behind a wonderful legacy of love and service when he died recently in his 40s.

So leaving a great legacy doesn't require tons of money, or a brilliant mind or lots of education. It doesn't require being a public figure, known and recognized by many. Certainly, Nelson Mandela left a great legacy, and he was known by millions. But this simple Kenyan man worked for 16 years caring for elephants whose mothers had been killed. I have visited the orphanage three times, and I didn't know his name. Yet he left behind a wonderful legacy of love and care for some of Africa's most vulnerable animals. What a legacy does require is a great heart, passion for a cause, and lots of love, plus actions to put that love into effect.

So I asked myself what legacy I will leave behind. It won't be a hospital or research center with my name on it. It won't be a Pulitzer Prize-winning book or a ground-breaking discovery. But I hope my legacy, as limited as it may be, will be that I touched the lives of a few others and made life better for them. I also would like my legacy to be that I looked for opportunities to do good in life without expecting anything in return. 

Although I don't have a lot of relatives or friends, I hope that those I leave behind will remember me as a person of kindness, love and generosity. Maybe they will remember that I volunteered at a local food pantry and at a wolf rescue, or that I donated my photographic talents to animal rescue groups. Maybe they will recall how I twice paid the tuition for my daughter's best friend so she could attend community college, or how I sponsored a deserving Kenyan student so she could attend high school for four years. Maybe part of my legacy will be the substantial financial donations I made to help animals in need, from dogs to elephants to wolves and whales. And let's not forget the dozen or so dogs I adopted and loved.

I want my legacy to be that my life made the world a better place. I know I made a positive impact on a young Russian girl, whom I adopted when she was 11 years old, and stood by through several turbulent years. She says that she got her love of animals from me, but she already possessed that love before I met her. Maybe I just helped her to develop and show her love.  

I hear about presidents and politicians working on their legacies, and they seem so lofty. Most of us won't have lofty legacies when we pass on. I know I won't. But each of us can leave an individual legacy, a history of love and kindness. We can, each in our own way, leave our mark on the world. Even simple acts of kindness and compassion can have a lasting effect on others.

What will your legacy be? 

Leaving a Legacy of Love

I recently read a blog a mother had written about the legacy she hoped to leave her young child. That started me thinking about my own legacy.

I want my legacy to be not my house, my car or my investments. My legacy isn't even the heirloom furniture and painting that belonged to my grandparents and then to my parents. These are material things, and while they have importance and value, they are not what I want my legacy to be.

No, I want to leave my daughter something much more important, yet intangible. I hope that my legacy will be the things I have taught her through words and example. This legacy has far greater importance to me than any physical items I can leave her. In 50 years or 100 years, will the size of my bank account or the kind of car I drove really matter? Will anybody care? What will matter is the legacy of love I hope to leave my daughter.

She grew up in Russia, in a family of abusive alcoholics, unwanted and unloved. She has had to learn about love, how to receive it and how to give it. This process was slow and difficult, but she now knows what love is. This, I believe, is my greatest legacy: helping someone learn to love and be loved.

Other intangibles I want to leave my daughter are compassion (for animals and people), generosity, honesty and integrity. My mother showed her compassion through a variety of activities at her church. She and my father both contributed every year to the local newspaper's shoe fund, which provided new shoes to needy children. And my dad always donated cases of canned goods to the local food bank every holiday season. These are parts of the legacy from my parents, and I hope they are things I will leave my daughter. Like many adopted children, she struggled for years with the concepts and practice of honesty and integrity. She does at last appear to have grasped these concepts and their importance. A concern for the environment and a willingness to volunteer her time, talents and resources for the benefit of others are things I hope to leave her as well. She is a kind and compassionate young woman; some of this she learned from me, but her kindness and compassion also are innate traits.

Someone recently commented that I "know how to live," which I think is a great complement. I know people who live their lives much more fully than I do, but I am pleased that someone thinks this about me. Although I don't take unnecessary risks, I do not sit home because a longed-for experience makes me nervous or has some risk involved. So I want to leave my daughter a sense of adventure. I want her to want to learn new things and to explore the world. I want her to embrace, not fear, challenges.

I also want my legacy to include a sense of where she fits into the world, to know herself and to be proud of who she is. College most likely is not in her future, but she is attending cosmetology school. So I hope she becomes the best hair dresser she can be.

Thinking about my legacy has been an interesting exercise. It has given me food for thought, and I hope it makes me a better person.