REMEMBER ME

My mother died suddenly 29 years ago. I remember looking through her possessions for evidence of her love for me. She saved a few of my birthday and Mother’s Day cards… but I never found anything in her own handwriting that told me that she loved me. When I was in college, she would send me recipes or Ann Landers columns signed, “Love, Mother.” What I remember about her was the way she would stand in the doorway and slightly wave her hand, saying, “carry on” each time I would leave her. And so, I do.

My father left quite a few letters for my brother and me. He was a writer and everyone who knew him, received handwritten symphonies in his own inimitable style, and the fact that he lived to be 99 years old gave him plenty of time to tell his stories and to tell his children how much we meant to him… and vice versa.

So, from my experience, I urge you to consider writing to your loved ones and to each other. Create a “legacy letter.”  This personal document can convey values, beliefs, wisdom, and life lessons to pass on to our loved ones, or to friends and community members. Unlike a legal will, which deals with the distribution of material possessions, a legacy letter focuses on intangible aspects, like our moral and spiritual guidance.

So, get yourselves a notebook or some stationary and start writing or typing… Keep little slips of paper with you all the time…it can be a variety of little messages, notes…. However we express it, we can share with those close to us our personal values and beliefs about family, and feelings about them and what we might have expressed… we can write about our community and spirituality and why our values are important to us, shaping our decisions and actions.

We can share life lessons and wisdom, reflecting on our experiences, successes, challenges and failures. We can offer advice based on what we’ve learned, helping our family and friends to avoid pitfalls we encountered or encouraging them to embrace certain approaches to life. We can express our love, gratitude, and appreciation for them, and we can include messages of encouragement or wisdom for our children, grandchildren, and on and on.

We can think about our own hopes and dreams for the future and share our aspirations, not just in terms of material goals, but also for the moral, social, and emotional well-being of our loved ones. We can leave behind hopes for how future generations will continue to honor our values and traditions.

We can share specific stories and anecdotes and add photos that have had a profound impact on our lives, to convey the lessons in a memorable and personal way. These kinds of stories can provide insight into our character and the experiences that shaped us.

We can offer advice for handling hardships and struggles and how we learned lessons from these experiences.  I think about future great grandchildren and how my words could be helpful to them in dealing with their own challenges.

If we are spiritual or religious, we can reflect on how this has influenced our actions and beliefs. We can include what Gd means to us and add some personal prayers or blessings we want to pass along.

We can share our thoughts about the kind of legacy we hope to leave behind, not just in material terms, but in the emotional, ethical, and spiritual impact we hope to have on the world.  We can reflect on how we want to be remembered and the contributions we have made.  We can add apologies for things we wish we had done differently. I think of our community’s Eight Over 80 honorees and the lives they have given in service and philanthropy, and the lessons they will share with the loved ones they leave behind.

These kinds of letters can be written or videotaped to be passed on after our death, or even better, some of these can be shared now, during our lifetime.

Creating a legacy letter is a way to ensure that our most cherished beliefs, lessons, and values continue to resonate long after we’re gone. It’s a gift for our loved ones, passing on to them a sense of connection, understanding, and purpose rooted in our own experiences and wisdom.

Towards the end of his life, and after a wonderful visit, my father would smile and say to me, “I hope you’ll remember me.”

I will.

Shabbat Shalom.