Ep 150: Write Your One-Line Legacy
About 20 minutes before the my dad\u2019s calling and funeral service were scheduled to begin, we were milling around, chatting with various family members, organizing papers for the service.\n\nThroughout the week, my brother and I searched for photos and significant mementoes to display or add to a slide show.\nScrapbook Recollections\nDuring that search, my brother unearthed a scrapbook I created decades ago. He brought it to the funeral home, since it spotlighted a lot of Dad\u2019s family members and memories.\n\nI\u2019d forgotten all about it, but apparently I\u2019d interviewed Dad as I showed him items like an old clock or a painting. I also pulled out his old photo album filled with images of his family members. Most of them were old, old photos dating back to the early 1900s.\n\nMaybe I made this for a college class or for a birthday gift, but whatever the reason, I recorded him talking as he described the item, the original owner, and told stories about the people in the album. Then I transcribed everything and put it together in this scrapbook.\n\nI handed it to my nephew. \u201cDid your dad show you this?\u201d\n\nHe took the scrapbook and shook his head no.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cthese are stories I had Grandpa tell me about people and stuff. You\u2019ll recognize the clock and some of the artwork. You might enjoy it. It\u2019s your family, after all.\u201d\nUncle Ed\nBefore long, my kids and their cousins were all leaning over the album, reading the stories and looking at each item. I was standing nearby when I heard them all laugh about one of their grandpa\u2019s recollections.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s funny?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s this \u2018Uncle Ed.\u2019\u201d My nephew pointed to an old photo. \u201cGrandpa went on and on about other family members\u2014this lady was a nurse in the Army and this guy was a captain and was really important. Then all he had to say about Uncle Ed was...\u201d\n\nMy nephew leaned down and I could see the slim strip of paper I\u2019d printed out and mounted below the photo of a man. \u201c\u2018Uncle Ed didn\u2019t do much with his life.\u2019\u201d He looked up. \u201cThat\u2019s it. That\u2019s all he has to say about Uncle Ed.\u201d\n\nEveryone laughed yet again.\n\n\u201cPoor Uncle Ed!\u201d I said. \u201cSurely he did something with his life?\u201d\nReducing a Life to One Line\nMy brother had joined the conversation by now. \u201cYou know,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen you get one generation past the death of someone, your whole life does seem to get reduced to just a few stories.\u201d\n\nMy brother would deliver the eulogy that day. He said it was hard to know what to highlight about Dad out of all his stories and all his interests.\n\nMy brother continued, \u201cWhen you get a couple of generations removed, like Uncle Ed is to us, sometimes all that\u2019s left is one single line.\u201d\n\nOh boy.\n\nIf I\u2019m remembered for just one line, I hope it isn\u2019t, \u201cAnn didn\u2019t do much with her life.\u201d\nWriters Leave Behind More Than a Line\nI\u2019ll remind you of one advantage we have as writers: we can leave behind more than one line. We can leave behind books and stories and essays and poems and journals.\n\nSimply by writing\u2014by building a body of work, especially nonfiction but fiction, too\u2014we control the narrative we leave behind to some extent. At the very least, we offer a collection of source documents, if someone ever wants to dig in and learn more.\nOne-Line Legacy - A Summary of Your Life\nBut at our funerals one day, someone will have to summarize our lives as my brother had to summarize Dad's.\n\nIn episode 149, I urged you to write your own obituary or eulogy, reflecting on a life you\u2019d like to live. That obituary is a summary of a life, not a biography, but it can be long and fairly detailed.\n\nThis time, we\u2019re going to summarize even tighter: What one line would you like to be remembered for?\n\nIf we get to the end of our life, and a generation or two removed, and some great-great-grandnephew points to your picture in an album, what one story would that be? Assuming you could control what\u2019s remembered, what would you want the cousins leaning in to read?