Recently I had been going through a lot of my wife’s high school and middle school keepsakes. She saved all of her awards and report cards, some projects, and some of her stories she wrote. I love it because between the thousands of photos and videos I have of us, the fact I saved all of her possessions, clothes, books, etc, and that I have these school and childhood memories from her, I have so much to pass on to Ava as she grows so we can keep having lessons about mom and who she was.

One of the countless concerns I had when Kim passed was, how would I keep Ava from forgetting her? I instantly employed many tactics. As many as I could think up. We would color pictures about mom, record ourselves talking about memories with mom, going to mom’s favorite stores, watching mom’s favorite movies, and talking about her daily were a few of the instant ones. In the post I wrote FALL FORWARD , I talk about apple picking. Some of these things were tough to do for the first time without Kim, but I did them so Ava would remember doing them WITH Kim. It tore me up to do these things, but I had to for our memories sake. Yet, the thing that always helps most are the videos, pictures, and now…. these school items.

See, for once, Ava is not the only one being “taught” about mom when she sees a photo of Kim and I from before Ava was born. Now we EACH are looking at these pics of mom in 3rd grade and reading through some of her fourth grade homework. We are reading a letter mom wrote to her pen pal when she was 10. We are looking at mom’s planner from when she was in college. We are seeing these days of her life, together, through my wife’s eyes.

It got me thinking about our legacies we have. As humans, we start aging the second we are born. We know we all will pass at some point, yet, why are we generally so bad at preparing for that? I mean, some of us have wills or financial plans, but why is it that so many people pass and don’t leave written letters or recordings? We pass as if we just assumed we would have the next 10, 20, 50 years. Maybe we cant afford to leave a financial nest egg, but every one of us can pick up a pen and leave a emotional one.

When you go to the beach, you don’t wait until you get there to buy a bathing suit, do you? When your flying on an airplane, do you wait until you get to the airport to pack? So why is it that we ALL know we are going somewhere, but yet we fail to prepare by doing some of these things for those who are here when we are gone?

This following box is a post I wrote a few months after my wife passed:

“We kept to ourselves with the assumption if we just lead a decent life and didn’t hurt anyone else, we would be OK. I guess I learned what a stupid idea this is. We are all in line waiting to get to the end. There is no moving positions to the back of the line or trading places with someone else. Right now as I type this we all have a place in that line and do not make the same mistake we made and think you can know where exactly you stand. Take a minute and try to do somethingThat will eliminate a regret you might have tomorrow because you didn’t do it. I have regrets but the one regret I do not have is that I always put my wife in my daughter before anything else. Right wrong or indifferent, they came 1st. I now carry that same With Ava. There is an easier way to grieve. If I don’t talk about Kim, if I take her pictures down, If I shield Ava from how I am feeling…. We could just run from this and try to move on. I won’t do that. I will talk about her everyday. Eventually I hope it doesn’t hurt as much for I know it always will. And it should. I think the only thing I can think of worse than living with such a range of emotions from the happiness I felt when we said “I do” To the sadness I felt when I had to tell Ava what happened” 

I write a lot. People will tell me that they learned a lot about life through my shared story, but then I look over at their priorities and I want to scream. I want to tell them, please, slow down. Enjoy the moment and those around you. What we have to do is two part. One part, we need to create as many memories with those we love so that should they depart before us, we will have special moments that will keep their flame lit well after they pass. The other part is that we need to impart memories about ourselves onto others. That could be through going to an event, a phone call, or writing and creating memories that can grow even after we are gone.

Looking through my wife’s old items, I am now getting new memories with her even over 2 years since she passed. God blessed me with someone who had that for sight to do this. Now its up to me to pass that down to Ava and do the same. Our legacy is not our house, or our bank account. Sure, those things are amazing to have to leave to our descendants, but, our true legacy is how we are remembered. I’m telling you today that this is huge, now all you have to do is act on it. You won’t regret it.

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