No, of course we don't want to think of wills, estates and what we leave behind for our children–no less the non-monetary stuff. But a legacy–from what we did with our lives to the books we read them to the birthday cards we wrote them–has meaning that carries forward, along with the memory of us and our values.
That said, here are some legacy-leaving words from an unexpected quarter: Ray Bradbury, writing in Fahrenheit 451. (Thank you MiddleSage for calling my attention to this.)
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said.
A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes
made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul
has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that
flower you planted, you're there.It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from
the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you
take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a
real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well
not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
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