We all
leave a footprint in this world. Perhaps it’s a physical imprint, something
we’ve created or a place we’ve contributed something to. Sometimes what we
leave behind is our impact on others—an idea, an attitude, a conviction that,
through us, has touched their lives. Often we leave our mark by how our words and actions encourage or inspire others, how our listening or refusal to
judge empowers them. At times, regrettably, we impact others by how we
discourage or hamper them. One way or another, we have left our
mark.
Typically what we leave behind are
the stories friends and family tell of us. It has often been said that we die
three times: when the body ceases to function, when we are buried, and when our
name is spoken for the last time. Within a few generations most of us recede from
memory, consigned to a leaf on a family tree and fading with the passage of time toward the
oblivion of "the ancestors.” But stories can keep us alive
long after we are gone.
I have memories from an early age of
my maternal grandparents, Nana and Papa, and stories I
still tell of them. Nana scrubbed office floors at night to outfit her ten
grandchildren at Easter every year. Papa was an auto mechanic who, like many a
good garage technician, could diagnose a problem just by listening to the engine. I recall their physical presence too. Nana was a heavy woman who waddled
when she walked, a loving grandmother capable of both tender hugs and
disdainful stares of disapproval that live on two generations later as the
“Nana look.” Papa, with the swarthy complexion of the dark Irish and deep
sorrowful eyes, would sit contentedly on the couch, a grandchild
on his knee. My paternal grandmother died when my dad was only eight, so of her
I have only a few stories to tell, like the one of dad in his childhood grief crying under the front steps when his mother’s coffin was carried
out of the house for burial. My paternal grandfather died when I was just
one, but I have known him all my life from the many stories my dad would tell of him, like the time my grandfather lied about his age to enlist and serve in
the Spanish-American War.
I hope to keep all my grandparents alive in the stories of them that my sons tell to their own children, even though they never knew them in life. I know that my boys will pass on to their own children stories of my mom and dad, of whom they have their own fond memories, and I hope that they, in turn, will pass them along to their descendants.
In addition to
the fading photos of earlier generations, today we have the legacy of videos
that will conjure not only our images, but our voices, actions, and mannerisms
as well. In all these ways, but most of all through stories, I like to think
that my children and my grandchildren will remember me and speak fondly of me
from time to time when I am gone. Then, although I will have passed from this life, I
will come to live beyond my allotted days every time my name is still spoken.
