My Legacy

Recently I embarked on my eightieth year as a separate human being. I never envisioned living this long, but here I am, close to being an octogenarian. The time has come to consider what legacy I will leave behind. What have I contributed to the world in all these years?

As it happened, both of my daughters wrote birthday greetings that answered my question. Nancy wrote:

Dear Mother,

I was thinking about my favorite birthday party I ever had: it was when you took me and some of my friends to a park and we all got busy playing in a stream. If only other parents could understand the importance of getting their kids out into nature! Thank you for giving me a love of the outdoors and for appreciating all living things.

Next came a card from Carol, who had just returned from a family camping trip:

Dearest Mom,

…Camping always brings back to memories of camping with you, Nancy, Ozzie and sometimes Holmes and Candace. I wonder how you had the energy to pack up the car nd drive for hours with loud, argumentative children only to arrive at your destination and have to pitch a tent, make a fire, and cook dinner. So much work! Well, it didn’t go unappreciated. Nancy and I were fondly recalling such trips just yesterday.

Thank you for making the effort to get us out into nature. The camping, gardening, gooseberry-picking, morel mushroom-hunting – all of these activities helped foster my love (as it turns out!) of nature and my deep respect for the environment.

So there it is, my legacy. If I haven’t done another worthwhile thing, this is a sufficient legacy.

I had to laugh at Carol’s parenthetical “as it turns out!” She was referring, I’m sure, to a time when I took the children to the Baker Nature Preserve to pick wild gooseberries. As Ozzie, Nancy, and I were picking gooseberries from their thorny branches, mosquitoes swarmed around us. Carol refused to participate in the harvest, but sat on a big rock, declaring, “I hate nature!” Thank goodness her attitude changed.

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer