The Heart Of Legacy

I have recently been volunteering to help out at funeral services, and it is probably one of the greatest and most profound experiences that I have had. My heart breaks every time I see the loss and its almost as if by the time the funeral ends, that I feel as though I knew the deceased. There are big funerals and small ones but, all funerals are of relevance because they mark the end of a life and leave behind a legacy in some portion.

I have found that funeral attendance does not represent impact. I have personally attended a funeral that was less than five people and the impact of that soul was incredible. Impact and legacy are like a new genesis that occurs when someone dies. They cannot be measured or based on a rudimentary calculation of funeral attendance; they are to a certain extent, supernatural and immeasurable for human understanding. Legacy tends to follow a longer life span and impact is always made with life in general; both are seed to a new root in the heart of those left behind at the moment a person passes from life to death.

The thing is, we all come into this world fresh and ready. And most of us go out into life, with the normal "reach for the moon, fall among the stars" zest. We pursue life with vigor, and joy, wrestling its challenges and taming its beasts. We race hard and fierce to the end and rest in our final days with peace and contemplation but that's it...it ends and it's over. And what I have found in my volunteering is this: It is 100% true that “You can’t take anything from this world except what you can carry in your heart” so the question that presents itself to us is: "What is in your heart?" and "How will you connect it to life after death?", "How will you connect it to another?" And perhaps this is part of the definition of legacy, if not the entire definition in whole.

Yes, funerals cause us to think about death but, they should also cause us to think about life. Funerals have a way of proving that it's not about how you die or what you were doing when you died, people don't miss your passions, your success or harp on your failures, they miss you. Its not about what you did for a living, or how much money you made, or what title you held in your company, that is most cherished, missed and anguished by others when you are gone - it is what was in your heart and how this is connected to those who attend your final good-bye. People hold on to the heart of a person, and the heart of who you are is the memory above all else and so it seems, that our truest legacy is found in the heart.

So today I challenge anyone reading this post, as I likewise challenge myself, to fill in the blank below. If what is filled into that blank, isn't what were living for, may we start living like we ought to; because when you can’t take anything from this world except what you can carry in your heart - you also can't leave behind anything that never existed there either.

I heart ______________________, and that is my legacy I wish to leave behind.

CM