Legacy is an interesting thing. As an adult I have often thought about what kind of legacy I want to leave to my children, my family, my friends and the world I impact. But the thing I have been thinking on recently is: “What legacy was left to me?”
My mom. That is a sentence all on it’s own. She left an amazing legacy to me. One of the reasons I write today is because of her. I watched her search for the words to write her story my entire life. When she passed away, she had not written that story. I’m not sure if she had been given 100 years if she would have even written that story. It was in her heart and mind and she lived it everyday but when it came time to write, she had no words.
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| Mom & I on Mother's Day when I was about 4 years old |
I remember one Christmas her youngest sister Barby gave her a beautiful leather bound journal to begin writing those words. Aunt Barby had gone through ever couple of pages and wrote inspiration quotes or scriptures so that as she progressed through the pages, she would have a little note to inspire her. When she passed away, I found the journal on the bookshelf next to her computer. My mom had not written one single word in this journal. She had been so touched to receive it but she never used it. I now have this journal and have not written one single word in it either. But, just as my mom did when she received it, I have paged through all the pages and read all of my Aunt’s beautifully scripted handwritten quotes and for me, it has inspired me.
I am not walking in my mother’s footsteps. I am not waiting for the perfect words or idea to get published. Being my mom was an editor at a large Christian publishing company for many years, she knew what people would read, what editors would read, and what would sell. I, however, do not. I just put my life into words that probably no person would pay to read. That’s okay with me. The legacy my mom left was one she never walked but yet it exuded from her all the time. She was going to write her story and because she didn’t, I am writing mine and some of it is hers.
Another legacy was one my mom’s mom left to me. Though she is still her, there was a legacy that she instilled in my mom that was passed on to me. My grandma walked a legacy of independence. This independence was born because she was widowed very young with three small girls. She raised them all on her own and didn’t remarry until around the time her girls were marrying. She walked this walk in amazing grace and confidence and I have looked to that many times.
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| My grandma and her three girls (my mom is the oldest). |
All my life, the lesson I heard over and over, though not always verbally but more in action, was that I needed to learn to be independent because you never know what will happen. I often shrugged this off to the side thinking this would never be my life. Unfortunately it was. I was a young widow with young girls. I had to learn to do it all. When the car broke, I had to figure out how to take care of it. When the girls were sick, I had to get them to the doctor. These may have been things I had done on my own in the past, but now I had to do them on my own. There was no one else but me.
Or so I thought. One other legacy that has been left me by many generations and many family member was one of Christ. I am a daughter of the King. This is a legacy my grandparents on both sides, my aunts and uncles, my parents and my cousins have all walked. We are God’s and we do not have to do it all. We are not alone.
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| Mom's Family |
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| Dad's Family |
I don’t know what my kids will say is the legacy that I left them was. I do know some of the legacies left to me: writing, independence and God. I guess I will just keep writing my story and maybe someday my kids will write theirs. As long as God is the author and I am only an editor, I can’t see how this can be anything be a glorious legacy of God’s will for me.
