Lyndsay Green - The Well-Lived Life: Live with Purpose and Be Remembered

I began to think about legacy when my best friend was killed in a car crash. She was fifty years old and left behind two teenage sons. Her dog also died in the accident. This was fortunate, since he would have died of a broken heart anyway. My friend and I met when we were eighteen and called one another KS, for kindred spirit. For much of our friendship, we lived in different cities and were so psychically connected we would spontaneously phone one another at the exact same time and get a busy signal. On the day she died, I was watching a play, blissfully unaware. At some point in the first act, I began to sob uncontrollably. My husband was alarmed, since the play was a comedy. When he asked why I was crying, I replied, I dont know. Im just terribly, terribly sad. While I was weeping, my friends ex-husband and boyfriend were both leaving messages on my home phone asking me to call them urgently.

What is KSs legacy? Through the days of grief that followed her death, there was a thin silver lining. The outpouring of outrage over the accident, and the caring and concern for her family, meant that her photo was reproduced everywhere. And it was a gorgeous professional photograph she had just commissioned. She would have been thrilled with the timing of the photo shoot. And she would have been in profound sorrow and utter disbelief to find that her life had been wrenched away from her. We were both descended from long-living matrilineal lines and were convinced we would be celebrating our one-hundredth birthdays together. From our perspective, she had been robbed of half her life. Knowing her certainty about her longevity, I assumed that she would have been completely unprepared for this tragic end and that she would have given little thought to her legacy. But, as I was to discover, my assumption was wrong.

KSs death happened almost two decades ago and I have stayed close to her family, especially her elder son. Our relationship is one of her legacies, as is the strong hold she still has on my heart. But one thing bothers me to this day: I never asked KS how she saw her legacy. After her death, her work colleagues stepped up to organize a lecture series in her name at the local university. Her career had been groundbreaking, and in many ways, this focus on her professional contribution made sense. So, I set up a fundraising campaign to support the project. But my heart wasnt in it. I knew she was so much more than her work, this woman of many passions. I felt I could have swayed the outcome if Id been able to say, We talked about this and she said she would like to be remembered with... But that conversation never happened.

What alarms people about this story is the abruptness of the end. We assume well have time to think through our legacy: time to compose a meaning to our lives, time to follow a path closer to our lifes purpose, time to make amends, time to clean up our mess. But a death like KSs reminds us our lives may be cut short at any time, and the call Times up! may be sounded before weve paid attention to the implications of our end.

Looking back on KSs death, I wanted to learn more about her legacy. What has been her impact these many years later? Her professional accomplishments are easy to spot, but what about the influence she had on her family, friends and community? She left behind dependants and loved ones, including two teenage sons, a boyfriend who was living in the house she owned, her ex-husband, an elderly mother and an extended family. How did she plan for their needs? She had a full and rich life. What did she count as her seminal accomplishments? Did she record her story for her descendants? Did she have any regrets?

I was asking these questions because I was thinking about my own legacy. How would I feel if I knew my life was to end abruptly? Had I been living a life aligned with my values? Would my time on earth have made a difference to anyone or anything? What would I be leaving behind for those I loved? What responsibilities would be left dangling? What story would people tell about me after I was gone? Had I been taking full advantage of this one precious life, both for myself and for others?

I was curious about what other people were doing about their legacies. Were they deciding to change paths while they still could and, if so, what was motivating them to reorient themselves? Were they planning to right wrongs or fix problems, and how? I wondered whether people were recording their existence to leave some permanent traces for history. And what about those aspects of our legacy that require legal documents and financial commitments? How were people deciding what to put in their wills? Were they leaving a legacy donation, and how were they figuring out what organizations to support? How were they choosing the executor of their estate? Were they going to try and control from the grave, and did that make sense?

I discovered theres not much guidance for legacy planning. We know about the larger-than-life characters who win international awards, save species, or have buildings named after themselves. Their legacies seem guaranteed. But what about the rest of us who hope to live a good life, to make a small difference, to be remembered fondly by family and friends, and to make amends for our omissions or commissions before were gone?

When I told people I was writing a book on legacy, I occasionally met with defensiveness. Some assumed I was focusing on material wealth and said the topic wouldnt apply to them because they wouldnt be leaving behind an inheritance and would be lucky if they had enough money to meet their own needs. Others said they had accomplished nothing of note and would not be remembered. Others said it was vanity and hubris to pursue a legacy. Some said they didnt want to think about their legacy, either because they were too young to think about death or because they couldnt bear to face their own mortality.

This book responds to these perspectives and emphasizes the reality that we are all leaving a legacyfor better or worseand it warrants our attention. Whether consciously or not, we are building our legacy continuously and shaping it by the way we lead our lives. The actions we take and the contributions we make every day are the components that will structure our remembered self. As well, our future persona will be coloured by the attention we pay to the impact of our deaths on those we leave behind and our efforts to fill the gap left by our departure. In this regard, we would be wise not to underestimate the importance of the role we play on this earth. We may not have family responsibilities, but we may have a pet, and who would care for our animal if we werent there? Maybe were providing a service to our neighbour or our community, and who would take over that duty? And when it comes to material legacy, all of us will leave something, and the amount of attention that should be paid to our legacies is unrelated to the size of our estates. Our material bequests could include the literal giving of ourselves through donating organs. The letter we leave with our effects or the small memento we gift may have more meaning for the recipients than money. And, as the life of my friend KS illustrates, were never too young to think about our legacy, because death could arrive at any moment.

The stories youll read in this book have convinced me that approaching our lives with an eye to improving our afterlife can also deepen our present. By facing and accepting our mortality, we can enhance our lives in the here and now and leave a more profound imprint after were gone. When we confront our legacy, we have to admit that our lives matternot just now but after were gone, and they matter not just to us but to others. In the next section, I look at how I gathered my stories for this book and how they turned my understanding of legacy into a kaleidoscope of meaning.