The word legacy has a rather solemn ring to it, rather like the tolling of a church bell or the voice of an undertaker in an especially polished suit. It suggests permanence, grandeur, perhaps even marble monuments. And yet, I cannot help but think of legacy in humbler terms: the everyday residue we leave upon the lives of those around us.
When I contemplate my own legacy, I do not picture libraries bearing my name, or endowments immortalising my generosity (though if any wealthy relative is reading this, I wouldn’t object to a family endowment fund for biscuits). Rather, I think of my nieces and nephews, those young inheritors of the earth whose futures I shall not fully see. What, precisely, shall I leave them?
I imagine it will not be wealth, for my bank account is less a fountain and more a trickle. Nor will it be fame, for I am unlikely to feature on postage stamps or pub quiz questions. Instead, my legacy will take subtler forms: a phrase that lingers in their memory, a story retold at family gatherings, perhaps a habit of kindness they saw me practice and, God willing, decided to imitate.
Legacy, it seems to me, is less about achievement and more about contagion. Not the sort that requires antibiotics, but the quiet transmission of values, attitudes, and loves. We inherit our parents’ laugh, our grandparents’ recipes, our uncles’ eccentricities. Each of these is a kind of bequest, shaping who we become long after the benefactor has gone.
The danger, of course, is that we might romanticise legacy into something purely sentimental. In truth, legacies can be heavy burdens. Old prejudices, unhealed wounds, patterns of neglect—all these, too, are handed down. A life well lived must therefore involve a certain vigilance: what am I bequeathing, intentionally or unintentionally? Will my shadow obscure or illuminate?
To live with legacy in mind is not to be paralysed by self-consciousness but to cultivate a kind of moral hospitality. We prepare a house in which others might one day wish to dwell. And though we may never see them cross the threshold, the act of preparing is itself a good and noble labour.
So I ask myself: when my nieces and nephews reach the age of my breakfast nook philosophising, will they feel my presence as a burden or a blessing? If the latter, then I will have achieved all the legacy I could hope for.
