All That Remains

I started thinking about this post in specific while I was doing some project close out tasks. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, project close out involves dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. You document everything. Why you made a decision, why you didn’t, who agreed and who didn’t. The theory says you retain this information, so that if someone needs to understand the context or revisit the issue they don’t have to do all of the same work again.

It turns out, at least in a project, you are never really gone. I was looking at issues from 3 years ago; hunting people down, asking questions and requiring that they dig deep in their memory, think about things that have not seen the light of day in almost a lifetime.

While I was doing this, I was thinking of what we leave behind. When I die I will be gone in a way that someone with children can never be. When Mr. Spit and I are gone, our son will be gone as well. There were only a few people in that room, and when we are gone, Gabriel will be gone in a final way as well.

As I read the project documents, closing things out, I sometimes get a sense of what might have been contentious. I get a sense of what decisions came easily and the ones that inspired angst. I have been thinking about this as I think about what will happen when I die.

Someone will come into my home and pack up my things. We do not know what we will do with our estate, often joking we will leave our worldly wealth to a home for unwed cats. Someone will sort and pack, picking and choosing what is sold, what is thrown out. Like all hindsight decisions, I shudder to think at the image they will receive. Why did she keep a lemon juicer so covered in dust? She had a secret addiction to microwave popcorn judging by the cases in the basement. Did she never buy new underwear?

You could live your life imagining what would happen if you died tomorrow and strangers came into your house. When my Father in Law died, there were discoveries. Nothing salacious or even inappropriate, but things that are best understood through the lens of those that are related to us; those that have a shared history, shared memory. Those people can balance the strange with the memory of normal.

I think of the practical and the mundane and of larger, more existential questions when I think of my death. I wonder what will become of my things – the everyday items and those that are precious. I worry about the conflation of the two; the ratty old apron on a hook. I never wear it, but it was my grandmother’s. I wonder about the precious things, the four sets of china. I feel a responsibility to provide for my things in the way that others might provide for their children. I have an insurance policy that provides money for the care of my pets.

I wonder too, when I am gone, what will remain of me? The things that I hold to be precious, important and worth carrying on. The things I would have taught my children, and indeed the things that I have learned for the short time we travelled together.

Who will I teach about afternoon tea and pass on the history of my grandmother’s cucumber sandwiches? I look at my friends and the children around me, and the stories, the lessons and the essence of what I think really matters and I wonder: do I make a list?

Do I teach one of my nieces about afternoon tea and the sorts of purses and shoes a lady wears? Do I tell another who is more academic about my mother and her nursing degree, taken because my Grandfather would not pay for law school for a woman?

Most of this sort of learning is inspired and not planned. A teachable moment comes up, you seize it and it passes on. Maybe something stuck and maybe something didn’t. Life’s lessons bear repeating.

I have thought about endowing something. Leaving a memorial fund, creating a foundation. The problem with that is that it does not actually leave anything of mine save my name and my money. We could skip on the name and just use the money toward something that already needs help. Does it not make more sense to endow an existing scholarship than create a new one?

I know I promised you answers. Well, in hindsight, I promised you questions, and I said that good questions would lead to good answers. The PM in me, the mother in me, the wife in me, the person in me believes this too.

I have no answers. I do not know if this is because sometimes the answers take time or if my questions are not good enough, not yet. I am curious though, do you feel a need to leave a legacy other than your children? How do you do that? What matters to you in your legacy?

Comments

[Angie]

Beautiful post, Mrs. Spit.

My role in my family, I have recently realized, is to collect the stories of the family. I remember names, people and relationships. I have long trails of names that reads like Genesis--Isabel begat Adela. I ask my mother, then write it down when she goes to bed. I think about writing a novel, or series of stories, maybe. I think of my writing as a type of legacy that will live beyond me. Or I hope.

I think teaching your niece your grandmother's ways, or etiquette is beautiful. I have an identical twin sister, and I think it is amazing how we essentially had the same childhood, yet absorbed such different lessons and gifts from our grandmother, aunts and mother. She has to teach my daughter to sew, for example, and I have to teach her daughter how to make Panamanian food.

[Merry]

I have 4 living children, so my worries are not the same. Or thoughts perhaps, rather than worries. But i worry what will happen to the memory boxes that hold everything of Freddie. DH is unsentimental, the girls might mind less. One day, those things will end up in landfill; with my remains or without them. Do i asked to be buried with them, or what?

As for my legacy - oh I don't know. My children get to be my legacy I suppose. I have this hope that should infant loss ever befall them, Freddie and i will come to mean something to them - "mummy managed, I will too".

Who knows.

[mirne]

I've thought about this too.

I know that when Craig and I are gone, all our memories of our children will be gone too.

I keep all those baby clothes, but I look at them, and I wonder, why? Why do I keep them? Shouldn't I give them to someone who can use them? What will someone else think when I'm gone and they find baby clothes, a baby's cot, and all sorts of other nursery items?

Craig and I have many books. Many dvd's. Many paintings. Many pieces of art. I love collecting it all, and spreading around in our apartment. Our home. Memories of trips and times together. But who will value these things when we are gone?

I often think about what I want to happen to our things, our money, our property, when we are gone. I suspect that everything will be liquidated ("cashed") and donated to our charity of choice (an infant death or stillbirth charity).

I am aware that all traces of us and our children will vanish once we are gone. We won't leave anything in the world of us. Unfortunately.

[MrsH]

I think a lot about that, what happens to one's things when one dies, and where do you record what you have to say to the world. For me, it makes me shudder when I accumulate too much stuff, because I think of how we had to throw out or donate so much when grandma died, stuff that was almost never used by her. We need very little stuff to live on, and my goal is not to reach the end of life with too many things. I would rather hang on to the memories, and create blogposts, or flickr photostreams, for whoever cares. Just not stuff that will end up in the dumpster, that makes me feel really bad for whatever reason. This thought makes it easier to donate and declutter and buy less...

[Monique]

What a thoughtful and beautiful post.

For me, I am mostly unsentimental and practical so I purge often and likely won't leave much behind in the way of things. And once I'm dead, either someone will find my things useful/interesting/worth keeping or they won't. I won't be there to inject value or tell the story of how I came to acquire it.

My only concern, and I will be very specific about this in my will and have expressed my wishes to my husband and twin brother, is that Sam's ashes be buried with me. It is the only thing I do not want tossed into a landfill.

[eliza]

I don't think about this much, lest I spiral into depression. We've still got a chance for children and to pass that history down through them. We don't have close enough (geographically and otherwise) relationships with nieces/nephews to be able to do much in that direction.

The only time I've wondered much about this was in relation to the box of ashes. The other stuff, well, I'd be devastated to lose it in a fire, but after I'm gone, I doubt anyone besides my husband will care. In fact I wonder what will happen to 'G' Christmas ornaments we gave all the grandparents. When they pass - if I'm gone - will anyone remember to what that refers? Somehow, I rather doubt it.

But the ashes . . . that is what remains of him. Those, I care about. If my husband were alive, he could/should keep them, but he's already said he wants them with me. I expect his ashes will be kept with my remains.

Beyond that . . . I don't know. I suppose I've always wished for a legacy, but have come to realize it's wholly within the span of my life, whatever difference I make. I may have had grand dreams, but the impact is on the people I touch. Perhaps as it should be. And that endures in a way I can't really imagine, even if it's not soothing to my vanity and pride. Touching someone in a positive way makes the world a better place, makes someone hug their child an extra time, gives a smile to someone else who utters a kind word on a bad day. My Gabriel has helped me to see how such a tiny thing can be greater than we dream possible, if we look at it in the right way.

[Amy]

I became an engineer because I was afraid I'd never leave anything meaningful behind. The funny thing about being an engineer is that you do leave something behind, in my case many somethings big and made of concrete and steel (bridges), but often they go unnoticed. Bridges benefit society and get people from place to place, but people generally don't even notice when they are driving over a bridge, and even when they do, they never think of the people behind it's construction. We name our great Civil Engineering feats after politicians, war heroes, or civil rights leaders. But that, never bothered me. The world was better for my effort.

When I got pregnant, I realized my legacy would be different and so much more meaningful. But with our baby dead, there is a giant void. Now I feel like nothing I do will affect the world in the way that raising her would have. There aren't enough bridges in the world to fill that gap.

[Cynthia]

Wonderful post. It helps me to remember in these moments, that we influence the lives others in permanent, meaningful ways that we cannot imagine or predict or control. And that those who we affect most in our lives, may not be ones who we expect to affect at all.

[danielle]

Gorgeous. I think about this question all the time. Constantly, you might say. Our next-door neighbor died one of those horrible New York deaths where nobody found him for days and the neighbors couldn't remember his name, and I have been obsessed with this question ever since. Truth be told, i was obsessed with it way before that.

Because of what I do for a living, I hope that I will leave the world a slightly kinder, safer, healthier place than when I found it. But given that what I do is confidential, it will be a very quiet legacy. Most of the people who remember me will not know I am gone, and they will remember me quietly and to themselves. That's in keeping with who I am- I don't need a park named after me or a pile of first-authored journal articles to my name.

Sometimes, because I also teach, I think that there are people in the world who know how to do things that will help other because I taught them. That feels like a legacy I can be proud of, one in keeping with my values.

All that said, though, there is sometimes a part of me that wishes I could leave one big thing behind. I guess I'd just feel better if I could be sure that the neighbors would know my name.

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