Of all the people in my life who have died this year, most have left some kind of positively legacy. At first, the grief caused by bereavement has to pass, but then I remembered the good things they did and said. For a brief moment in time, the memory was so powerful it was almost as if they hadn’t died at all. I would go to send an email or text or message, only to quickly remember that they weren’t there to receive it or to reply. What’s the legacy, there? It’s complicated.
One friend who died this year left a legacy that you almost felt you could touch. A commitment to truth and honesty; a deep love of family and friendship, an example to everyone he came across. A doer rather than just a talker. And always kind.
The Be Kind movement has been around a few years now and that, at least to me, forms a critical part of my memory of someone I used to know. None of us are without our flaws – I certainly don’t have the time or space to list all of mine in this blog – but you can usually tell the good person from the bad one.
I am not always the best judge of people, either, and have been known to come to conclusions about people that are perhaps unfair or just plain wrong. I’d like to think I am able to spot the difference between a good and bad legacy when someone has died.
How does one define a bad legacy? I guess there is no specific explanation, but what about someone who did and said unpleasant things? Someone who walked away from family and friends for reasons that, on the face of it, made no sense? Someone who ignored you when you held out the hand of friendship? I can think of a few people like that who have died in recent years. There are many things that can give closure after a bereavement, like a good funeral – and believe me, I have been to a few bad ones over the years – for example, but others have left a bad taste in the mouth. While not remotely celebrating the death of someone who did and said bad things, I find it sad that I don’t feel sad. Does that make any sense?
I hate liars and have done so particularly since I cleared up my own life up many decades ago. I have tried hard, not always with success, to be a better person, not so that I leave some kind of positive legacy when I croak, because my overwhelming desire these days is to be kind. That comes from deep within. Does the apparent desire of some people to be a total shit come from deep within? I am not so sure about that. I don’t know if that requires any forethought at all.
It’s the “yes, but … ” part that I always think about it. “He was a good bloke, but … ” and then you get in to some troubling areas that death can’t undo. When someone has done unpleasant things to me and those around me, I am not going to have a change of heart about them.
And in the end, it comes back, as it always does, to the word loss. I feel the loss when those I love are no longer there. That’s stating the bleeding obvious, of course, but that’s because they were there for the good times. No poisonous legacy. When there is a poisonous legacy, or just the remnants of a dark cloud that always hung above them, that sense of loss, if it is even there at all, feels far, far less. It’s even worse if a person did have a positive legacy to leave behind but trashed it along the way. In my life, that has happened from time-to-time. Then there is little or nothing to grieve about, a minor loss.
Conclusion: same as it ever was. Be kind to those you know and love. Don’t be a shit and do and say things that will leave permanent scars because when you shuffle off off your mortal coil. I appreciate that you won’t have anything by way of feelings once you are dead, on the grounds that you are dead, but wouldn’t it be nice to be remembered as someone who did good things and left a positive legacy for those left behind?
