life and death

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Spirituality, Storytelling

Morbid Thoughts On Leaving Behind My Legacy Through My Child

October 25, 2012 at 8:51 pm , by 

23 months.

A few months ago during brunch, a friend was giving me some reasons why my wife and I should have another child. I guess for most normal people, it would have been a simple concept that was relatable.

But for me, well, I’m still trying to sort out what I’m supposed to make of what he said:

“Each time you have a child, it’s like another way you leave behind your legacy.”

I’ve thought about it for at least 90 days. My internal response is still the same as it was back on the day I first processed that concept:

What do I care what people say and think about me generations from now?

Let’s face it: A hundred years from now, we’ll all be dead.

Even more morbid is the fact that while there are 8 billion alive on the Earth today, a lot more than that have already lived and died.

I guess somehow that’s the reason I don’t care so much about leaving behind my legacy through my child.

Because what matters to me most is the living legacy I provide for my family. How in this moment and day can I be the best dad for my son that I can be?

It’s funny how it never takes anything too extravagant. It just takes being there for him, through the mundane times more so than the notably special ones.

For me, I don’t ever think how I will be remembered a century from now. If these yet-to-be-born-strangers are really that curious, maybe the Internet as we know it will still exist and they can just Google me or look up my Facebook profile.

Just as we all live together at the same time, we’ll all be dead together too.

So for the people I matter to in this life, I want to share my legacy with now, in present day, not leave it behind after I’m gone.

I’d rather be alive and influential than dead and famous.

 

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I Don’t Want to Die Right Now

September 8, 2011 at 10:59 pm , by 

Nine months.

I’ve only got about 50 years left to live, if that.

Most nights as I fall asleep, I can’t help but think how sleeping through the night is sort of like checking out of reality, reminding me of the lyrics to Tom Petty’s classic song, “Freefalling”: “I want to leave this world for a while.”

Though I’m overly aware that at any given second I could die of any random cause, like instantly turning into a pillar of salt, I’m never more aware of the inevitability of death than when I am fading and falling into the dream world.

Sleeping is the closest thing I know to having an understanding of what it’s like to be dead. It’s the closest concept I have of understanding what it’s not like to live in this world, confined to rules of practicality and common sense.

Sure, it’s an understatement to admit that I don’t want to die right now. But I’ve never been more caught up in life than I am at this very moment, so it’s really on my mind.

After all, I have made a covenant before God to love my wife for as long as we both shall live. Then the two of us brought another life into this world. That’s pretty dang epic. That’s deep.

So now that I have involved myself this drastically in the course of history (and therefore, the future), I’m just dying to stick around. It’s not simply that I want to see what happens next; not simply that I want to see how the story unfolds with my wife and son. But I want to literally be here, as part of their story.

Without a doubt, it’s sad to think that the story could go on without me. It’s sad to think that has been reality for so many people who “died before their time.”

I’m not afraid of death. I couldn’t be any more confident of what happens to me the second after I die. But while I’m not afraid of death, I am pretty fascinated by it.

It amazes me that millions of people alive today in this world could take life (and therefore, death) so nonchalantly: That despite all the miracles in their lives, they never see a need to think past this life, and to consider how the people they interact with each day can be affected eternally by their words and actions.

How can a person not think about eternity, or convince themselves it doesn’t exist? The irony: that life itself distracts a person from thinking about death.

I can’t imagine not taking enough time to pause and wonder about what happens when the lights finally go out for good and what this life was for. I do it on a daily basis.

So it’s not that I ever wanted to die, or wouldn’t mind dying, but now more than ever, if I have any say in the matter, it’s as simple as this:

I don’t want to die right now.

And if I shall continue waking up alive each day, as I have done for 30 years so far, then I shall continue to live to the best of my ability. I’m the kind of guy who takes life way too seriously, but in a good way, I would like to think.