Legacy.

Sometimes the greatest lesson is the one that comes to you in the middle of the night.

I lay curled under the warm covers, sleep evading me, thinking of this, of where I am, of where I was headed and where the journey has now lead. I feel good, knowing that I have met with the estate planner and that my ducks are collectively in a row. I have effectively mapped out what will happen to me when I am gone, ensured that my family is taken care of to the best of my ability. The disposition of the house is set, the college fund established, debts paid, donations made. My daughter knows which jewelry is her great-grandmothers, which is mine and which is the stuff for goodwill. The art on the walls has been reviewed for value and personal taste, and it doesn’t matter which ones go where, as long as the family pictures stay intact. There is more than a lifetime of junk that needs to be sorted through, but try as we might; I don’t think any of us get that done before our days come to an end. We want to, we intend to, but it is our legacy, to leave boxes and drawers of papers, bills, pictures and mementos to be sorted out by our survivors. And maybe there is some comfort in that. In the process of going through it all, of remembering what was lost. For we are written in those scraps of paper, our faces emblazoned all over in the box of loose pictures. The old note stuck in a book that brings back tears and memories. There is comfort in those items, in holding them in your hands and feeling the life of that who has gone before you. Knowing their hands, their hearts, lay in that very place, in that very space in time, with love and knowledge.

I think of all the things I should sort out for my children, then I wonder, maybe it’s not for me to decide. Maybe they will glean a little more depth of wisdom of who I was by the books I read, the poems I wrote, the letters I scribed, the pictures I saved. Maybe I will leave more than just a legacy that includes financial matrixes and a list of who gets what and when. I will leave them pieces and glimpses into the person I was beyond what they knew, what they saw. Enable them to see into me.

That’s when it comes to me. The lesson. I’ve set it all up, I’ve eased my mind over what happens when I’m gone, when I realize that the greatest gift of all is that I’m still here, laying under the covers, curled up across the hallway from my daughter, across town from my son. I’m still here. That is the greatest gift I can give. It’s me. It’s living long enough to watch the college fund dwindle down to nothing. It’s wearing the jewelry that my grandmother left me, its sharing froot loops on a Thursday night in front of the TV. It’s me. That’s the gift. The real one. It’s the life we give, the life we lead. Sure, it’s important to leave something behind. We all want to leave a legacy. But nothing beats today. Nothing beats another day together, another day shared with the ones we love. So that’s the gift I’m taking with me. I’m taking another day. And I’m going to love every moment of it.