It started as a simple to-do list, but then I annotating what happened during the day with just a few words added to my completed to-do items. It was a short step to cutting and pasting those passages to the bottom of my to-do list, and voila! It became a journal! My to-do list has the following captions: If I have a longterm goal, I can put it in Someday.
When I think back to my childhood, it is the memories of the day to day that I treasure, not the yearly camping trip or what my mom served for Christmas dinner. This day to day recording of our family life is what I want to give to my children, just as the raising of wonderful children is my hopeful legacy to them. Sometimes these letters are about times we have shared together that have meant so much to me. Other times I have written when too emotional at the time to express my thoughts verbally, or want to remind them of something of importance.
I have my thoughts and expectations in writing. For example, one of our children is musically gifted so there are lots of praises to God in the Psalms margins praising God for this child who loves to use her musical gift to praise God and to give us joy. Another child is always smiling, funny, etc. Our other child, even while very young is a natural teacher, so in scriptures regarding wisdom and instruction, there are comments and praise for her.
There are also comments praising God for giving me a Godly husband to join me in raising our children. Oh this just speaks to me… on so many levels. Im trying now how to pare down my blog list that I follow… ungh…. Thanks for the reminder that all of these blogs are to help us live our lives, not distract us from them. I think about this all the time.
The problem I have is that I choose the legacy 75 percent of the time, which leaves only 25 percent of me to get housework, etc. And when I see that mountain of laundry or the piles of dog hair gathering in the corners of the room, I feel like I am failing. How do I even begin to let go of the guilt so that I can enjoy the legacy I am creating?
I love this Megan! I recently struggled through the same thoughts. The God of the universe knows my name and that is all the fame I need. I absolutely love this post. My parents were all about spending time with us. I am making sure my husband and I are doing the same. My inlaws are not this way so, I am having to explain to my husband these little moments at the dinner table or talking to them instead of watching tv are important.
Wow, thank you Megan, this post just confirms what has been on my mind the past few days on changes I need to make in the way I spend my time with the ones I love the most. My husband went in with him on the last time to tuck him in and he ended up laying down in bed with him and just listening to him and Logan they share a room talk about their day and what was on their minds.
What a lovely way to start the new year! Life is always trying to make us busy and speed by too quickly. Oh Megan, these are such wise and timely words! Thank you for your honest admonitions. I have been noticing recently that when we spend extended periods of time without any screen — computer, tv, smartphone — our quality of life is just completely different. I already commented over at your own blog, but just wanted to echo the applause here. I love what you said about not wanting to be just a silhouette — I think about how hollow, shallow and busy I must seem.
This morning, around 5 am my son almost 2 woke up crying. I went in and rocked him for about 5 minutes and put him back in his bed. I wanted to get back in my own bed myself! Grace abounds with most children—even grown ones! Technology, and so many other things, can be a real thief if we are not conscientious and intentional. I like the way your friend put it and you are wise to take it to heart.
Thank you for sharing and also for the reminder about grace. We can be so hard on ourselves as moms. I too want to leave behind a love of reading and writing in my kids. To that end, we have a basket full of books in the living room, play room, and each of their bedrooms for them to access at any time. Often my 2 year old just wants to dump the basket but even just this morning he spent 20 minutes in his room reading alone.
Like many others, I too am trying to keep this in mind. Sometimes when I feel ungrounded and unfocused in my parenting and family life, I think to myself that I need to do for my kids what I want done for my grandkids. Our kids are most likely to parent their kids the way we parented them. I loved the line about not being remembered in silhouette, turned to the screen. I found myself nodding at everything you wrote. I want all the same things — my kids to remember me as engaged and caring and kind. Not distracted and impatient; which is how I sometimes feel.
SO, thanks for the thoughts and encouragement. I really loved not only what you had to say in this post but HOW it was said. I will be thinking about this through the week and hope to put my thoughts down on paper. Or even on my blog! What a great post! This was a great reminder; thank you! What a beautiful essay! I teared up when you mentioned how your mom regrets yelling at times or not playing with you on the floor enough. Anyway, thanks for a great discussion topic for my husband and I to ponder over the coming weeks — and years.
Somedays I feel like I may need a Step Program to keep help me live this on a day-to-day basis. As a mom of 4 grown kids ages , and grandma to 7, I can attest to this. Make the memories you want them to remember, but be sure to give yourself some grace! They need YOU and not all the stuff you could buy them or the extracurricular activities they could do.
Find the meaningful stuff and make it count! Thank you for this, Megan! So, I entered the questions in my journal, and after sitting with them tonight, I plan to start writing tomorrow. This seems like the perfect way to begin. I have a copy of my essay from that exercise in my control journal and I reread it every so often. As part of our daily routine, we also recite our Family Mission Statement and it helps us to move throughout the day in alignment with our values. I needed to read that and remember to stop, breathe, relax and listen to little ones and enjoy them even if potty training is not going great and the laundry is growing and…and…and… but what matters most is relationships.
This is a very inspiring post. Glad i was able to read this one! It motivates me to appreciate my parents and to become a better parent also to my kids. I agree that our parents leave a remarkable legacy on us… A legacy that will last forever. I hope that that legacy will help us to become good parents to our kids. I love this post… Hope i could read more of your articles. Thank you so much for this post. I have taken the idea of legacy creation one step further for me and created My Memory Box Project. When my own mother died, I realised that any financial legacy was a paltry offering compared to the love and wisdom that we have to share with our children.
I am now in the process of creating a series of videos about my life and my lessons in the hope that they will be of some comfort to my children when I am no longer around to give them the help that they need.
Legacy Letters | Leah Dobkin | Soul of a Port
Thank you for this post — it has reassured me that there are like minded hearts and souls out there who realise that our true legacy is the love and wisdom that we are able to share during our lives. It can be read in under a minute, pinky-swear. Now check your email inbox Be sure to check your spam folder or the Promotions tab in Gmail.
You can reach us at hello theartofsimple. The Holiday Gift Guide is Here! Building the legacy your children will remember. That statement profoundly shaped my thinking about my plans and goals for the new year. Would you like to join me? Start at the end It's hard for many of us to think about our own mortality, but the truth is that if we are wondering what our lasting legacy will be, we must begin at the end of our lives. When I am gone from this planet and my children are reflecting and remembering me, what do I hope will be their most powerful memories of the time we had together?
What do I want written about me in my obituary? What are the stories, memories, and influences I hope to leave behind for my children's children, and others for whom I hope to have influenced? Evaluate and connect Photo by Andreanna Moya Photography As we consider our hopeful legacy, we must take the next pivotal step of evaluating who we are and what are doing now that either contributes to or takes away from building that legacy. Little things are long-lasting One of my favorite lines from the movie Up is when Russell tells Mr.
Photo by Beth Rankin As I've given much thought to my own legacy in the past few weeks, I've realized I don't want my children to remember me only in silhouette - a face turned toward a screen. You May Also Like: Catherine on January 12, at Love this post on so many levels. Missy June on January 12, at Nadene on January 12, at 4: Alison Moore Smith on January 12, at 7: They are gone before you know it.
Alison Femita on January 12, at 7: Miguel de Luis on January 12, at 9: Hi Megan, I lack children, but nevertheless I believe there are far more important things than checking blog stats. I had to leave behind a lot of close friends. Another setback was that at P. I took a deep breath, dug-in, and, in 8th Grade, a year later, my schoolmates elected me President of the Student Government. The experience taught me to make the best of a situation. I had a religiously deprived youth.
Even though at a very early age my mother described her deceased father, Velvel Simcha, to me as a tsadik -- a man who spent most of his adult life studying the Torah, leaving mundane things like raising the family and providing sustenance for the family mostly to his wife. Nevertheless, I know Velvel Simcha was respected as a person because me and three other male cousins, all first-born sons, were all named after him.
My mother, who was very strong-willed on most everything else, deferred to my father on raising us void of any religious education. Although, he was a hardworking house painter, who always found work, even in the depression, he was very bitter about the American capitalist system. Karl Marx' dictum that religion was the opiate of the people pretty much described our family's belief about religion. My father was not a card-carrying communist, but he made sure that my sisters and I grew up in an atheist environment.
When I was about to turn 13, and having attended the Bar Mitzvahs of several of my friends, I discovered a yearning to be like them. With great trepidation, I announced that I wanted to be Bar Mitzvahed. My mother encouraged me, my father was silent on the issue. When I awoke that morning, to my surprise, my father was still in the house, having not left for work.
Knowing that he never missed going to work even when he was sick, I asked, "What's wrong? I'm going with you. Not only did he go with me, but he was invited to the Bimah, and much to my amazement, he read the Hebrew prayers effortlessly, almost by memory. After the services, he left for work, leaving me to ponder the effectiveness of the education he must have received that pounded the prayers so effectively into his mind that he recalled them after many decades. Would this be a turning point in my life? Hardly, because after this, I was again adrift and even more confused. Why did my father go with me that morning?
Why did he seem to abandon his strong convictions against religion? Was he uncertain and confused as I was? I was left alone to find my own way in dealing with spiritual matters and my Jewishness. A footnote to this story, is a very emotional experience that took place during one of my granddaughters bat-mitzvas. The rabbi announced that she was reading from a Torah saved from destruction by a group of Jews in Slonim. This raised the possibility that it was the same Torah from which my Dad read as a child. As a teen-ager the dramatic formation of modern Israel aroused feelings in me.
I, like millions of others, stayed glued to the radio as the delegates to the United Nations cast their vote on statehood for Israel. When the war broke out between Israel and the Arabs after independence was declared, a friend of mine, recruited me into a youth organization that began to train to fight for Israel. We stood honor guard in our uniforms at rallies held in Town Hall and places like that. One day, two older youths came to my house to interview me, afterwards I saw them visit my neighbors.
I would not be surprised if they became members of the Mossad the Israeli secret intelligence agency They must have found out something about my background that they did not like, because, my friend stopped being my friend, and I stopped getting notices of the next meeting or rally. A few days later, I read in the paper that the group was practicing landings off Manhattan Beach, and that their boat was capsized and several of the trainees drowned.
How strange that a son of a communist sympathizer had this encounter with a right ring Zionist group, called Betar, the youth organization of the Irgun. My Uncle Louie, my mother's brother and his wife Lillie owned one of the first Jewish-type delis and grocery stores in that part of New Jersey Caldwell, mentioned earlier Between ages 10 and 14, I would work at the store during the summers.
I soon became a whiz at adding up cost of items on a paper bag. I also learned to cut butter from the big barrel. I took a knife and estimated a pound and it had to be pretty accurate because a customer who ordered a pound really wanted a pound. My Uncle Louie also thought I should get some fresh air and he showed me the way to the Caldwell Park where they had an outdoor arts and crafts program.
Sample Legacy Letters
On the park's picnic tables, I built model airplanes. That's the beginning of my love for model airplanes. The local boys at the park called me "New Yorker" instead of my name. I believe the nickname was a form of anti-Semitism because, in those days, Jews were not very well known in that part of New Jersey. One day I said, "Why won't you call me by my name, Willie?
Why do you call me New Yorker? Do something about it.
- Raised by the Game.
- Building the legacy your children will remember | The Art of Simple!
- The Reincarnationist (Mills & Boon M&B)?
- Return of the Post Moderns.
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- Los desplazamientos temporales de trabajadores en el marco de una prestación transnacional de servicios (Spanish Edition).
They challenged me to go with them up a hill away from supervision. It soon became apparent that we were going to resolve the name-calling controversy with a fight. I was scared because I never had a real fistfight in my life. He threw the first punch and I flayed at him. One of his punches landed on my Adam's apple and I could hardly stop gulping and coughing. The next day I went back to the park, and the local boys including the bully did call me Willie.
The name New Yorker was never used again. I didn't run away from a fight. Sometimes you have to fight to defend yourself or something you believe in. Win or lose, sometimes you have to fight. We believe in America's diversity, a tapestry and not a melting pot.
- The Eleventh Amendment and Sovereign Immunity. (Contributions in American History)?
- To My Family,!
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- Multiple Sclerosis: Advances in Clinical Trial Design, Treatment and Future Perspectives.
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- Gloria (from Gloria);
Cultivate a diverse group of friends and remember to judge a person as an individual, not by their ethnic, religious or racial group. Learn about your religion before you decide to live or reject it. I did everything possible to give all four of my children a Jewish education.
We were strict with, Josh and Darren, and much more lenient with, Leah and Michelle. Strangely, my daughters became more interested in religious traditions than my sons. I say this not to prove anything about strictness vs. I'm just relating what has been our experience. I think it is important to provide some religious framework and also expose your children to all religions and cultures.
What counts is how much you grow spiritually from the starting point you inherited. I hope you continue some of the traditions of Judaism and pass them on to future generations. Personally, I appreciate stories about the sages and prophets, especially those that help me understand the meaning of Judaism.
One of my favorites is the one about Hillel and the proselyte who came to the great sage and asked to be taught the whole Torah quickly, in the time that he could remain standing on one foot. Hillel showed great patience and understanding. He answered by saying: This is the whole Torah, the rest is Commentary. Go and study it. I identify very much with the words of Henry Thoreau on his death bed, when his aunt asked, "Henry, did you make peace with your maker.
I know I haven't offered much in the way of spiritual guidance. However, I hope that my manner of living has served as a living example of the Jewish moral code. You come from a long line of political activists. For those of you reading this letter who are not married yet, make sure that you marry someone who has the same feeling for social activism as you have; that they want to be involved in the community; that they also want to leave the world better than they found it. Make sure you marry someone who is secure enough in themselves to let you be what you are.
Then you have found your soul mate. I was proud of my activism in creating the teacher's union, The United Federation of Teachers, and how I took part in the teachers' strike in for union recognition and collective bargaining. Only a small number of teachers took part in this first strike. We created a union that spread all over the country. It helped change our life for the better. Instead of working day and night and in the summers, I could take off during summer time as a result of the union gains. Our family shared wonderful summer experiences as a result of gaining a summer family vacation instead of having to take on a summer job.
During one of the teacher's strikes, I ran an alternative school at a local community center to give the United Federation of Teachers UFT a better public image, and to say we're not striking against children; we will work during this strike for free. We're for bettering the teachers and thereby bettering education. In , we are experiencing a head-on assault on unions and public employees, and I don't know where this will lead.
I hope, as a citizen, you will feel empowered to fight for your rights and for social justice. When you care about the world around you, about something larger than yourself, and you act upon your convictions, know that all of your ancestors are rooting for you and your goals. As an elected official, in this case, park commissioner in Great Neck, Long Island, I believed it was important to be transparent and inclusive at public meetings. This openness allowed me to be successful in reaching my goals. Democracy thrives when citizens feel that they can speak their minds without feeling criticized.
Public service is a noble profession, although in my adult life, some public officials became disrespected and suspect. Your legacy is what you fight for and what you protect. When you go to Steppingstone Park in Great Neck, and you see the seawall that was built under my chairmanship, and you see that we built an abutment around a tree when we built it, when you look at that tree, think of me; we saved the tree; and when you look at the tree at the PAL building at Memorial Park, think of me.
During construction projects, we never allowed a tree to be taken down whether straight or crooked. The construction had to accommodate the tree.
Our Family Legacy and Its History
There were other accomplishments. We saved a parcel of waterfront property for public use and were one of the first public entities to install emergency defibrillators. We used a dog to chase Canadian geese instead of killing them. I also feel that we changed the culture of the park and the way the staff interacted with the public. Remember to vote and never be discouraged by the political process. Margaret Mead said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Social change can occur on the micro and macro level. Never underestimate the power of teaching one student and helping them grow. When I was an instructor of education and a high school supervisor, I attempted to impart my own philosophy of evaluating students. I would say do not measure a student so much as where he stands in comparison to the other students, but where he stands at the end of the term in comparison where he was when he first became your student.
In other words what counts is how much you have helped the student grow from the starting point you inherited. Our liberalism has its roots in New Deal solutions to the Great Depression. One of them began his presentation with the phrase "in the long run. Concern over "big government" does not apply in finding solutions to human suffering. I am, therefore, very proud when I hear about my children participating in political demonstrations, participating in voter registration and turnout drives, volunteering to fly a great distance to save the life of a child in a third world country, speaking up at a corporate meeting about workers' intellectual property rights and leading workshops in non-profit fundraising.
These are my kids. It is my hope that the tradition of social awareness passes from generation to generation. I am proud that all indicators point in that direction. My grandchildren already seem to have caught on. They do things like volunteering at a museum, demonstrating on behalf of collective bargaining rights of public employees, participating in mock trials and taking pre-law in college and a program that integrates math and social sciences in order to find scientific solutions to societal problems.
Could you imagine how I felt when a grandson tells me he wants to be a teacher, and another one's serious girlfriend wants to be a teacher? Could you imagine how I felt when one of my grandsons accepted my invitation to sit in on one of my discussion groups? There were a dozen men present. Most of them were of the "Great Generation.
The beat goes on. To my grandchildren and great grandchildren, please remember it's important to do your best in school, but you don't have to be number one in everything to be happy. I hope that you will continue your passion for learning. In school, learn for the sake of learning and not only with an eye to a future career or how much money you can make. I regret not foregoing a summer of being outdoors as a sports counselor at a camp to continue working at NBC, where I had a part time job in my senior year in high school.
One big mistake was leaving a job that had great potential. When I was only 17, I had a job as an office clerk for NBC in Rockefeller Center, but I quit It after only one school year because I wanted to go back being a sports counselor at a summer camp, whose owner incidentally was the man who got me the job at NBC in the first place.
It was and the broadcasting industry was just beginning its post-war expansion into television. Had I not left, I might have had a career that grew with the TV industry itself. This is why I think I made a stupid mistake, and why I had a good shot at having a career in media. This was part of the All-city Radio Workshop for talented students.
I was the only one in my high school to receive a nomination in this citywide talent search. My course was in script writing. Apparently, my English teacher thought that I had writing talent. This, plus my keen interest in current events brought me this honor. Imagine what my life would have been if I continued working at NBC through my senior year in high school and college and graduated into a full-time position at the Rock.
Sure, had I become a broadcasting executive, I would have not had the opportunity as an educator to affect the lives of thousands of students; but, in media, I could have reached millions. My mistake was not seeking the advice of anyone, especially not having an adult to whom I looked up and to whom I would listen. I would advise the young members of my family to maintain a relationship with someone they respect who could advise them at a critical time in their life.
If I could do it over again, I would cultivate a relationship with some adult someone to respect. If you do this you can bounce ideas off this person to gain direction.
If you find someone like that grab hold of that relationship and cultivate it.