Leaving A Legacy/ Notes To My Children

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.

Building the legacy your children will remember | The Art of Simple

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.

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.

Building the legacy your children will remember

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. CatherineLove on January 12, at 9: Melodie on January 12, at 9: Rachel on January 12, at 9: Fantastic post, as always, Megan!

Sarah on January 12, at 9: Anna on January 12, at 9: Dominique on January 12, at Mom2xamj on January 12, at Stacey on January 12, at Tsh on January 12, at Thanks again, as always, Megan!

Sample Legacy Letters

Your words are gold. Susan on January 12, at April Driggers on January 12, at If you have any pearls, do let me know! Jennie on January 12, at Lauren on January 12, at Katie Imperfect People on January 12, at Tammy Rinehart on January 12, at Susan smallcompilations on January 12, at Eila on January 12, at What a fabulous reminder. Julia on January 12, at 1: Tiffini on January 12, at 1: Diane on January 12, at 1: Wow … wonderful post. It went right to my heart. Time for a change. Bethesda Locavore on January 12, at 1: Becky - Clean Mama on January 12, at 2: As always, Megan, your words ring so true….

Hannah on January 12, at 4: Catherine R on January 12, at 4: Such a great reminder for so many of us! Mela Kamin on January 12, at 4: Samantha Mama Notes on January 12, at 4: Kathleen on January 12, at 5: I needed this reminder! The Lazy Dazy on January 12, at 6: I recently wrote this post about how to foster a love of writing at home: Lisa on January 12, at 7: Alicia on January 12, at 8: Courtney on January 12, at 9: Intentionally Katie on January 12, at 9: Elizabeth on January 12, at Melissa on January 13, at Tara Burghart on January 13, at 4: Living the Balanced Life on January 13, at 2: It kept her alive.

She coped with life by not sweating the details but by keeping focused on her goals for herself and later for her children. Hers was a life of concepts not details. She was a fabulous cook and baker, but never bothered with recipes. She measured things by instinct and "feel. You could not hide secrets from her because of her intuitiveness. Most of all of them first lived in the East Side, only houses away from each other. There she met my father who also lived in an East Side tenement. Today, if you wish to understand what life was like at the time for these immigrants, I would suggest visiting two museums, the one on Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum on Hester Street.

When things got better for them they moved to Brooklyn. My parents and most of my uncles and aunts lived in Coney Island, a "better place," only blocks away from each other, unlike today's families that are geographically dispersed like ours. But one family tradition seems to be maintained by us now.

All four of our children seem to yearn for a "better place. Each in their own way has fulfilled a dream of my own to live in beautiful, natural surroundings. For the children, life in Coney Island with its beaches and amusement parks was rarely boring. If you said, I'm bored. My mother or father would say in Yiddish, "Stick your behind out the window and slap sour cream on it and yell bravo!

Our Family Legacy and Its History

What they were saying is life is so beautiful and interesting, so tap into your imagination and creativity and find something worthy to do. To this day I can say that I've never been bored. If worse comes to worse and there really is nothing to do and I feel lonely, then I keep up a conversation with myself. I think I converse better with myself than with others. Another thing I learned from them is how to get along in a group. Grandma and grandpa would say, " Az tzvai zuggen shikeh, de dreetah darft gain shluffen.

In other words issues in a group should be resolved democratically. Papa set the example of being skilled, responsible and conscientious - putting forth an honest day's labor for an honest day's pay.

Even though I grew up during the depression, I don't remember ever feeling hungry or deprived. He always managed to find work and buy the essentials for his family. My father, Abe, was a painter and decorator. He was also resourceful. During the depression, he had business cards and leaflets distributed, so when jobs were scarce, he would obtain odd jobs. One was to paint the rides at Coney Island during the off-season. I remember in particular when he painted the pavilion that housed the bumper cars. I met the owner when I delivered his lunch to him. The owner gave me free passes to ride the bumper cars when the rides reopened for the summer.

I was so proud of my Papa. I realized, if you are smart and industrious, there are opportunities everywhere, even in hard economic times. Grandpa Abie was very strong for his size, only five-foot-six. Once he was painting the window frames of a. The scaffolding rope broke. The scaffold platform disappeared from under his feet, and he was holding onto the rope for dear life.

He climbed up the rope until he could find an open window to swing into and saved his life. Whenever you feel ungrounded and scared, remember Grandpa Abie, and know you too have the strength to swing into a more solid footing. He was a quiet man, yet he would share advice and make up sayings. He said if a painter entered a filthy house, he did a sloppy job. If you keep your house neat workmen will do a better job. He also told me, "Don't eat and shit in the same place. Don't work in the kitchen and don't take telephone calls in the kitchen or the dining room. My dad wasn't religious but I found out that he was passing on Jewish traditions that he learned as a boy.

In a traditional Jewish dining room you use special dinnerware for the Sabbath and Passover meals. Eating is a spiritual act, in essence eating the fruit of God. You treat the space you eat in as special. My father's insights were profound even though he lacked formal education. Some remain as a mystery to me. He came to visit me in Caldwell, New Jersey. I was living with my aunt and uncle during the summer time because my mother and sisters had gone to Saratoga Springs and the Catskills. My two older sisters were performers. They sang and danced. We were sitting in this park in Caldwell, New Jersey, a park that is still special to me for a number of reasons.

My father made the poetic observation that nature made straight and crooked trees. What did he mean to imply? Were they both beautiful? Uncle Lennie influenced me also. Lennie, was a WWII veteran. I looked-up to him, following, in the newspapers and radio reports, his division's th Timberwolves advance across France and into German. He actually helped to liberate holocaust victims held in concentration camps, and showed us photographs of the atrocities. When he returned from World War II in , he needed temporary work, because he was a married man and a college student.

He got a job as a temporary letter carrier during the Christmas season, and he said to me, "Why don't you apply? I will never forget the lesson I learned from this. Take a chance even though the odds are not in your favor. Who knows what might happen? Two years prior, when I was years old, we moved away from Coney Island to Flatbush in middle of the school term. My parents thought "we were moving on up. 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. 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. 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.

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.