Can YOU leave a better legacy?
I want to tell you about a poem, but where to begin? “With the end in mind” seems apt, as my professional life is spent helping people to make their Wills, use Trusts, creating Lasting Power of Attorneys, and plan their funerals. My job satisfaction comes from knowing that I help my clients enjoy deep-rooted peace of mind by sorting their “stuff” out. This is especially true when it comes to making a Will, but recently I’ve seen something missing from that list of services.
Your Will is simply a set of instructions that say what you want to happen to your stuff, your “worldly possessions”, and of course, that’s important…but it’s not the only stuff we have to leave behind. What about all that other “stuff” on the inside? Inside your head, your heart, your soul…
What about your stories, memories, values, regrets, happy times and sad ones? Events in your life that would shape your advice to your loved ones after you’re gone? Put another way, any of the “stuff” that ISN’T found in your Will, but that which ultimately is what makes you YOU.
During 2018 and 2019, three significant people from my life died, including my Dad. After two years of processing and reflecting on these events: reading, thinking and songwriting: my feelings coalesced into recognising how valuable and important it would be to record that “other stuff”.
“Leave a Better Legacy” is the result: your thoughts are recorded and turned into a beautiful heirloom book which can be passed to your loved ones as an enduring source of insight, support and, ultimately, love.
In my life, the aforementioned poem that my father wrote for me when I was a teenager is my precious example of someone “leaving a better legacy”. Reading it has been incredibly helpful and comforting to me on multiple occasions, as my life unfolded over the almost forty years since he gave it to me.
Here’s a small excerpt from this poem that my dad called “The Child is Father”
And when, one day, you find me there,
some old buoy, a bald, offshore light
tossed by the waves,
if you’re sinking
you can rest on me for a while, treading water.
Just as my eyes
swimming with you, find the island,
unmarked on any map,
that is always here.
It is wild, largely unexplored, and,
I believe, in the dark and tangled heart of it,
there are women and children.
So, what about you?
What would you like to share with the people that matter to you? What would you like to leae
in the hearts of the people you love?
Do you want to leave a better legacy?
