Remembering

Last Thursday my friend and fellow blogger John wrote a thoughtful post titled "Remembering" that just cried out for me to write my own thoughts on the topic.

John's post was inspired by the life and death of Dolly Parton, surely one of the most beloved people of my lifetime, and the lesson he drew from it. To quote from his post,

"There is nothing inspirational about just existing for another day. I won't be creating anything, nor discovering anything, nor making any contributions to my neighborhood or to the world around me.

 

"I'll read a little, clean up my outdoor living area (deck), maybe take some recycling in -- nothing that will generate a memory for anybody. And honestly, I'm okay with that. 

 

"I won't be putting up statues, building monuments, nor slapping my name in public areas to force people to remember me. I'll just live my life and allow you to live yours. If we're lucky, maybe a few people will remember something good about us when we are no longer here."

When I read John's post, I remembered something I read long ago in the wonderful book "Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlife," by David Eagleman,

"There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” 

Most of us are like John and I. We're born, grow up, and die. During the time we're here, the vast majority of us will never do anything that will cause us to be remembered for long after we're gone. We'll raise families, have careers, retire to our gardens and blogs, and pass the torch to the next generation. Few of us will have statues and monuments erected in our honor. Few of us will demand to have triumphal arches erected or performing arts centers named for us. We'll be remembered for a while, fondly if we're lucky, by those whose lives we touched for better or for worse, and then we'll be gone, no more remembered than the most humble peasant tilling the soil in the time of the pharaohs. 

At some point, as Mr Eagleman reminds us, our names will be spoken for the last time.

And so, I guess, there's not much point in deliberately trying to build a timeless legacy. As Gandalf told Frodo, 

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I like to think I've made the right decisions, for the right reasons. At least, most of the time.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo