(My 75th blog!)
Ever reflect on what it is you will leave behind when you depart from this world?
Sometimes I do. I’m sure most of us do at one time or another.
This Earthly existence is a short one – even for those lucky enough to reach 90 or even 100.
Time flies, as they say, and nobody really knows where it goes…
So as I age, I've become more and more aware of what will remain of me when my physical being is no longer here.
As for me, I am lucky. With more than 30 years of writing for a variety of newspapers and other publications, I have a fairly large body of work that spans from Iowa to Colorado to California and back to Colorado again.
That kind of writing is really about recording the history of a place, and my writing – to one degree or another – will hopefully survive well into the future.
And my name is on it.
Then there’s my songwriting. I've written dozens of songs in my life and recorded more than 60 of them on six CDs. Hopefully, in the future people will still be able to play CDs, although it’s getting harder every day to locate a CD player.
Once ubiquitous in vehicles, CD players have been going the way of the Dodo. And many people don’t want to store CDs in their homes anymore when most everything is easily accessible in the Cloud now.
Then, there are these blogs that I’ve been posting since May 2021. I just posted my 75th, and I plan to keep posting till I hit 100. After that – well, we’ll see…
My best friend in North Carolina took up painting after he retired and discovered he is pretty good at it. And getting better all the time. No one knew he had that hidden talent – possibly even including him – but it’s been wondrous to watch it unfold.
So he has that to leave behind, among other things. Like his kids and his grandkids and his great-grandkids. Same as me.
I do feel sorry for those who – for whatever reason – went through this Life without children. Because kids keep our memories alive into future generations – if we’re lucky.
I don’t know – maybe it’s just our own vanity that makes us want to do something memorable or in some way be remembered after we pass.
Obviously, we can’t all be famous or even have kids to carry on our legacy. But I believe most of us would like to be remembered – at least for a while.
Because – unless we reach some level of fame or infamy – Time will eventually swallow up our memories and none of what we did in this Life will matter much – if at all – 100 years from now.
In the end, we all will fade into history, remembered only in the memories of our loved ones -- and by those we touched with our good deeds.
And when they are gone, all that we achieved and accomplished in this Life will be gone.
But it’s OK.
Because that’s just Life. So make it the best Life you can, and you WILL be remembered.
At least for a while.
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