What is Your Legacy?

Yester­day, as I was blog-hopping, I hap­pened upon a site named Andrew Olm­sted where the words “Final Post” caught my atten­tion. The post begins:

This is an entry I would have pre­ferred not to have pub­lished, but there are lim­its to what we can con­trol in life, and appar­ently I have passed one of those lim­its. And so, … I must say here what I would much pre­fer to say in per­son. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It’s not easy ask­ing any­one to do some­thing for you in the event of your death, and it is a tes­ta­ment to her qual­ity that she didn’t hes­i­tate to accept the charge. As with many blog­gers, I have a dis­gust­ingly large ego, and so I just couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Per­haps I take that fur­ther than most, I don’t know. I hope so. It’s fright­en­ing to think there are many peo­ple as neu­rotic as I am in the world. In any case, since I won’t get another chance to say what I think, I wanted to take advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity. Such as it is.

What I don’t want this to be is a chance for me, or any­one else, to be maudlin. I’m dead. That sucks, at least for me and my fam­ily and friends. But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would pre­fer that peo­ple remem­ber the good things about me rather than mourn­ing my loss. (If it turns out a spe­cific num­ber of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have pre­ferred to have more time, but I have no busi­ness com­plain­ing with all the good for­tune I’ve enjoyed in my life. So if you’re up for that, put on a lit­tle 80s music (prefer­ably vin­tage 1980–1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw ‘Free­dom Isn’t Free’ from the Team Amer­ica sound­track in; if you can’t laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a lit­tle. I’m dead, but if you’re read­ing this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

His words are also posted at Obsid­ian Wings, a site main­tained by one of his friends.

You see, Andrew Olm­sted was also known as Major Olm­stead. He was killed in Iraq on Jan­u­ary 3, 2008, the vic­tim of a sniper. He was try­ing to talk three insur­gents into sur­ren­der­ing when he was struck down. Last July, after he was deployed, he final­ized his thoughts and entrusted his final mes­sage to his friend, with instruc­tions to post it if he were to be killed while serv­ing the United States.

In an Eng­lish class, I was once assigned the task of writ­ing a final let­ter to my fam­ily. I remem­ber think­ing that I did not have a lot to say. I was young, sin­gle, child­less and com­pleted the assign­ment in the man­ner you might expect — I wrote a let­ter to my par­ents, thank­ing them for all the sac­ri­fices they made for me and my sister.

Major Olmsted’s words made me think about what I would say today if I were to com­pose a mes­sage to be pub­lished upon my death.

All of us have spent a few moments won­der­ing what the world would be like with­out us. We’ve all pon­dered whether any­one would actu­ally miss us, how our fam­i­lies would func­tion with­out our pres­ence, who would take on all the respon­si­bil­i­ties that we bear on a daily basis.

Once you become a par­ent, an appre­ci­a­tion of your own mor­tal­ity accom­pa­nies the real­iza­tion that you have full respon­si­bil­ity for the totally vul­ner­a­ble lit­tle per­son you have brought into the world. Close calls on the free­way or hear­ing about some­one killed in a hor­ri­ble acci­dent or felled by a ter­ri­ble dis­ease, leav­ing young chil­dren behind, are among the events that remind us from time to time as the years pass by that we no longer live just for our­selves. Nowhere is the phe­nom­e­non demon­strated more poignantly or lov­ingly than at Tod­dler Planet where Why­Mommy has been writ­ing about her bat­tle to defeat inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer. Every post is per­me­ated with hope and deter­mi­na­tion to sur­vive — in order to raise her two adorable lit­tle boys.

Last week, one of those Hol­ly­wood news tele­vi­sion shows reported that legit­i­mate news orga­ni­za­tions have pre­pared an obit­u­ary for Brit­ney Spears. That prac­tice is stan­dard with respect to elderly or ail­ing pub­lic fig­ures — the nec­es­sary research is con­ducted and a draft obit­u­ary read­ied in advance, with the details added at the appro­pri­ate time so that pub­li­ca­tion can be swift.

How­ever, I was hor­ri­fied when I heard the report about Ms. Spears. Frankly, I don’t know whether I was more repulsed by the rev­e­la­tion that mem­bers of the media have engaged in the writ­ing exer­cise or that tabloid jour­nal­ists pub­li­cized that fact.

Lastly, this past Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 18, 2008, was the anniver­sary of my father’s death. On that day, I found myself think­ing about his legacy, of which I am, of course, a huge part.

The cliche is true: Life pro­vides no guar­an­tees. Like Major Olm­sted, our time here on earth could end quickly and unex­pect­edly. Any of us could suc­cumb to a form of men­tal ill­ness that would impact our abil­ity to con­tinue writ­ing. For those folks like my father, who had a quin­tes­sen­tial “iron will” to live, no num­ber of years is enough — even when death is immi­nent and inevitable, its arrival still seems sud­den and shocking.

So if you were to write a final blog post, a let­ter to your fam­ily or a last state­ment to be pub­lished in the event of your death, what would you say? What wis­dom would you share? What feel­ings would you express? To whom would you address the words that are likely to be deemed the most impor­tant or mem­o­rable writ­ing you ever did?

How would you com­pose the last chap­ter of your writ­ten legacy? I think it is a ques­tion that every writer can ben­e­fit from pon­der­ing from time to time.

Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. thought about his own legacy. He acknowl­edged numer­ous times in his writ­ings and speeches that his life could be cut short because of his work. Iron­i­cally, he gave a speech in Mem­phis the very night before he was assas­si­nated, April 3, 1968, in which he revealed that he was at peace with that knowl­edge, bol­stered by his faith. Did he have a pre­mo­ni­tion? Con­sider his words: “I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a peo­ple will get to the promised land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not wor­ried about any­thing. I’m not fear­ing any man.”

On this day, we com­mem­o­rate Dr. King — his life, his accom­plish­ments, his legacy. Let’s also com­mem­o­rate Major Olmsted’s sac­ri­fice and the ser­vice to our coun­try of all men and women — includ­ing my own father who served hon­or­ably in the Pacific The­atre dur­ing World War II — through­out the world over the years. And let’s light a can­dle for all those who are strug­gling to over­come all kinds of adver­sity, includ­ing Why­Mommy who is under­go­ing surgery in a cou­ple of days. Because our most impor­tant legacy is, of course, our human­ity and the man­ner in which we live out our human­ity by car­ing for each other.

An entry in The Sev­enth Day: Fifth Edi­tion Blog Car­ni­val at On the Hori­zon; the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life hosted at Con­fes­sions of a Novice; and Just Write Blog Car­ni­val at Incur­able Dis­ease of Writ­ing.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Col­lo­quium on Writing

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