We most likely won’t be remembered 3 generations from now. My grandmother was one of the most important people in my life, but when I think about what my granddaughters will know about her, it will be very little. Maybe pictures in an album, perhaps a story or two. It’s hard to accurately re-tell a lifetime of love and harder to explain how it was expressed and what it meant.
I think a lot about the legacy I’ll leave, and lately, I have been realizing that I want to leave behind experiences; both shared and future.
Right now, if I were to leave this planet, I would want my granddaughters to remember the sleepovers, the on-demand hugs, snuggle time, the farmer’s market, the beach vacations. Most of all, I hope they would remember the unconditional love. I hope they would remember that I loved them fiercely.
God willing, I want to show them the world; I want them to meet our friends in Switzerland and stand underneath the Eiffel Tower and look up, simply to take it all in. I want to share with them places yet unexplored.
I want them to take all these experiences with them; and then know that they have the power to go further. Go to places that I can’t even imagine and know that the beauty of this world is waiting for them.
My grandmother was a world-traveler and I’m hard pressed to name a place she hadn’t seen. Sometimes I feel that travel is my way of staying connected with her. At the same time, I stay connected with her through my love of cats and pickled eggs, my desire to constantly learn and my desire to take care of my family in any way I can.
My granddaughters’ grandchildren won’t remember me. But perhaps they will know me through the smell of lavender and waffles, through Paris and glaciers and through pictures with their grandmothers. And may this beautiful world go on and on.
