On February 8th around 11:15pm, my grandfather, Don Hall, went home to heaven. He passed after a brief time on hospice care after having a brief illness that stemmed from several years of struggling with his physical health. He was 95 years old.
His wife, Betty, passed away 6 years ago in January of 2019.
My grandparents on the other side of the family passed away in May of 2024 and January of 2010.
While all of my grandparents lived a good and faithful life, and we know without doubt that they are all in heaven, it can still be a sad time for us!
One of the saddest parts for me right now is realizing that all of my grandparents are gone. My connection to that entire generation is gone. Theo’s grandparents have also all passed away. Life is but a breathe.
My Mom and her siblings worked on cleaning out my Grandpa’s house and spent some time sorting and selling and donating. My Mom came across several photo albums and shoeboxes with pictures. As she pulled out the photos, her siblings gathered around to try to identify who was in the photos. After some sleuthing, they were able to identify that the photos were of great-grandparents. Without some deeper research, nobody knew their names. Nobody remembered them. Nobody had any memories or stories of who they were and what they had done with their lives.
While at first this is a very sobering thought- most likely, within 4 generations, nobody will remember you. Nobody will talk about you or share stories about you. Truly, life is brief. It is here today and gone tomorrow.
This isn’t a call to action to become someone that everyone remembers. Instead, let’s think about the flip side of a legacy.
Do I know and remember my grandparents more than 3 generations ago? I do not. And yet, did they leave a legacy for me? And one that passes on to my children and my grand-children? Yes, they did. I’m sure that I’m not seeing any material wealth and I certainly don’t have any stuff from them, but I know that they laid a foundation for their sons and daughters, children and grandchildren, great grandchildren and so on. They laid a foundation of a hard work ethic, an attitude of self-sacrifice for those they loved, a love of travel and missions, a desire for education. They didn’t know who I was. They probably gave very little thought to who their great-great-great grandchildren would be, and yet my family can flourish because of the solid bricks in our foundation that they made by living a good and faithful life.
You see, a legacy isn’t built in a day. And a legacy doesn’t fade away when you die. It doesn’t even fade away when the memories of you die. It continues on and on. This can go both ways- we can leave a healthy, strong, vibrant, faith-filled legacy for the generations to come…or we can leave a legacy of gossip, deep family trauma, selfishness, laziness, and only personal gain. We can leave strong, hardy bricks that future generations will lay down for the foundations of their lives…or we can leave crumbling bricks that promote generational difficulties in the foundations of our families for years to come.
A legacy isn’t built in a day. A legacy also isn’t built just when you are old. The habits of a legacy start now when we are young- how do we handle finances? Generosity with our money, time, and influence? How do we treat others- those whom we get along with, and also those who are different from us? How do we invest in our faith journeys and living that out every day? How do we treat our spouse? Raise our children? What do we value with our actions, our reactions and our daily habits? Of course, we aren’t going to be perfect. But reflecting on the life of my grandparents has been a refreshing reminder to not wait until I’m old to start building a legacy.
Legacy starts now.
