Sometimes we have to sit back and take stock of who we are, where we are going in this life, and what the ultimate plan is for when this life ends.
I’ve begun reading this book. It sounds odd, and the name is strange, but the topic is one we all should engage.
We talk endlessly about what we’d like to leave this world when we leave this world. More kindness. More compassion. More acts of dedicated service. We want to leave a legacy of love in its many forms.
What we often skip are the more mundane things. The things that take up space in our house yet hold no real value. The things that, post-death, may actually cause more harm than help to those who survive us.
Sure, I’d love to leave my children a grand inheritance or a giant trust fund, but unless I win the lottery five times over, that has as much chance of happening as my husband coming back from the grave and telling me to clean out my black hole of a closet.
It’s that black hole that sucks up not just space but time. It’s all those trinkets, objects that may have once held meaning, things that may have been useful at one time, that my children will have to wrestle over once I’m gone.
My children will open the closet, stare at it in disbelief as I do daily, and wonder where to begin. They’ll begin to uncover articles and objects that more than one of them would like to keep.
Disagreements over physical objects post-death have torn too many families apart when post-death is a time for families to be united in the loving remembrance of the person passed.
I look in my closet and my over-stuffed drawers and wonder, what am I leaving my children?
Am I leaving them something that fosters unity in difficulty, love amidst loss? Or am I leaving them objects that may have held meaning for me, that ultimately cause discord in the most vulnerable time following my passing?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned after the death of my husband, it’s that people matter. Things do not. Necessities, yes. But the ruby earrings my great grandmother gave to me in the late 1970s represent what I’ve already received. The love she had when picking out those earrings. I’ve worn them. I’ve enjoyed them. I’ve felt her presence when I wear them.
But it’s not the earrings she left me with. Those were a mere proxy for the depth of feeling she had for me. And I want to leave my children with that same depth of feeling, not necessarily the depth of who-knows-what that currently make up the mess that is my closet.
I wish peace upon my children as they grieve the time of my passing, whenever that shall be. I want them to remember how much I loved them. How much I sacrificed for them. How much I would have loved to have lived just one more day. To hold tightly to them, and their children, and their children’s children.
Just as in this present life, people matter most. And in the life that outlives my life, I want to leave that same legacy – that people matter most. Peace. Unity. And the sweet remembrance of the person passed. 💙
#laughterafterdeath #lookingintherearviewmirror #itsme #lifebeginsnow