Our friends — how distant, how mute, how seldom visited and little known. And I, too, am dim to my friends and unknown; a phantom, sometimes seen, often not. Life is a dream surely.
— Virginia Woolf, The Waves
As we shared in a recent blog post, Fran and I have been looking into end of life planning. I’m particularly interested in legacy work, which focuses on what we wish to leave behind. It can include physical items, but also writing, photographs, videos, and more. In the words of end of life doula Leona Oceania of Die Well Death Education, “legacy work is perhaps one of the greatest gifts you can provide to your friends, family, and loved ones.”
Fran and I were talking recently about her mother who is in her nineties. She commented that she knew her mom “maybe 10 percent.” This caught my attention. “Legacy work,” I ventured, “is so the people we leave behind will know more than 10 percent.” Fran asked how much I knew her. I thought a moment before answering. “It depends what kind of knowing you mean. If you mean all the events of your life, the things you’ve done and everything that’s happened to you, not so much. You’ve told me lots but I don’t remember the details. If you mean knowing how you think and feel, what’s important to you, how you react to what’s going on, I think I know you pretty well.”
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation and its relevance to legacy. What and how much do we want others to know of us, in the here-and-now and once we’re no longer around? What and how much do we want to know of those we love? I’ve never attached much importance to the historic details of life, my own included. I made many good friends at university, deep connections born of mutual respect and regard, and an ongoing commitment to one another. I’d say I had a decent idea what my friends were going through at the time — who they were, in other words. But I knew almost nothing of what they’d done, where they’d lived, or what had happened in their lives before we met. If they told me, it scarcely registered. If they didn’t, it never occurred to me to ask.
It’s not only friends from long ago. I know facts about Fran’s life before we met, including events, experiences, and situations that impacted her profoundly. I’d nevertheless struggle to say when they happened or even in what order they occurred. It’s a mutual situation. When I asked how much she knows me, Fran said she knows a lot about who I am as a person, but much less about the things I’ve done or have happened to me. For good and bad, our experiences shape who we are. They’re part of the you I want to know, the me I want you to know. But precisely when they happened, the timeline of your life or mine? That can be interesting to explore, but it’s not who we are now. For similar reasons, I’ve never been motivated to trace my family tree. My ancestors’ lives have no relevance to mine.
Such thoughts inform my end of life planning and legacy work. There’s a great deal to get my head around, decide, and put in place, but I’ve decided to start by writing my obituary. As a first step, I’m collecting the bare details of my life into a timeline. Birth, family, education, employment history, interests, achievements, activities. It will serve as a useful reference. It occurs to me that an obituary is no more or less than our final resume. Here I am (was) in two pages. A few hundred words. Everything you need to know. The best bits. The selling points. Give me a job. Employ me. Mourn me.
In many places I’m struggling to recall just what happened when and in what order. The timeline outlines the path that led me here, but it’s not me. It’s rich in facts, but light on the essence, value, or quality of those facts. Who cares about such details, anyway? Think of someone dear to you who has passed, or someone whose future death you can scarcely countenance. What do you wish you knew about them? What would help shape your memories of them, and your future without them? What schools they attended? Where they travelled or resided? Their employment history? Pay grade? Maybe such details are important to you. If so, that’s fine. But maybe you’d rather know what moved your loved one. What brought them to tears and to anger. The music they sang and danced to. The books, poetry, movies, loves unrequited and lost, photographs, treasured memories and dreams, interests, and passions that drenched their life with meaning. Who they were, rather than what they did. I think that’s what most of us want and would want to leave. It’s what I want to leave.
But how much do I want to share? Which bits are most important to me, speak most eloquently of who I am and have been and still yearn to be? What do I want to hide, for fear or dread or shame? And why does it matter at all when I won’t be around? These are questions I’m asking myself for the first time. I’ve not figured it all out yet. Hopefully, I have plenty of time to do so. But in making a start I’ve come to understand the responsibility such work entails.
I can leave YouTube links and playlists but no one will ever feel what I feel when listening to the music that’s threaded my life with meaning. My words will be an important part of my legacy but no one will ever feel what I feel reading my poetry, my short stories, our book, my blog posts. I can write of my people, past and present, but no one will ever ache the way I ache, love as I love and have loved. There’s sadness in realising that, but if it were otherwise, if we could capture the totality of a life for those left behind, it would cheapen the significance of death and the experience of losing those we love.
I’d like people to know more than 10 percent of Marty but there has to be room for what can only be mourned. What’s lost is as important as what’s preserved. I’m recognising that legacy work is a creative process. I get to be selective, to shine a light on this and that, leaving other parts in the shadows. I see it as curating my life as one might curate an art exhibition or anthology. Not everything will make the final cut. I’d settle for 40 percent. (Ah, but which 40 percent?)
If you’re interested in legacy work or would like more information about end of life planning, check out the Die Well Death Education website. (“You’re going to die. Why not die well?”)
Photo by Marina Shatskih at Unsplash.