Legacy – Should You Worry About Your Own Legacy? #64 #cong24 #legacy

Total Words

Legacy …now there’s a loaded word! As has happened in the past with the themes for Congregation I have ruminated for many weeks over what this this means to me. This time around I keep coming back to the same thing and that is that your legacy is none of your business in much the same way that what people think of you is none of your business. So, this might be a very short blog post!

There are many definitions for legacy and the one I am choosing to place at the heart of this post is that which refers to the practices that have been handed down from the past. So, when I think of legacy, I think of the people who are no longer here and what impact they have had on me and others who knew them. So, what I really mean when I say that your legacy is none of your business, is that you may be completely unaware of the impact you have on others so focusing on your own legacy may be a little pointless. It is more important to consider how you treat people as opposed to how you will be remembered.

My dad died 30 years ago. To say that it was a traumatic event doesn’t even begin to acknowledge the huge impact that it had on my life and that of my family. He battled for almost a year before he died and watching cancer reduce him to a shadow of his former self was heartbreaking. My dad was a strong, independent, hardworking man who spent the last few weeks of his life unable to really move himself in the bed or even feed himself. He was 50. I can’t imagine being in his situation and yet he accepted it for what it was and allowed us, his family, to see the best of him in his last months and weeks. So the legacy from my dad is to live your life and do the things you want to do. It is often said, that you will regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do, so I have made it my mission to do the things I want to do while I can …

But that isn’t his only legacy. Dad was hardworking, family focused and a good friend to so many people and all of these things have been mentioned many times in the years since he died. I would like to think that these are the qualities that I and my brothers and sisters have continued on from both my parents.

My grandparents lived in the same village as I did for all my childhood years. I saw these grandparents almost every day of my young life and I am so grateful for that. Their legacy for me was a really strong focus on family. This was very evident a few years back when I attended my cousins wedding. Many of my cousins were also at the wedding and we all had a fantastic weekend catching up and having the craic just like we did over the years in my grandparents’ house. This focus on family prompted me to move closer to my family from Dublin when my son was 2 to ensure that he would get a chance to spend time with his family making memories and creating relationships that will sustain him, and subsequently my daughter, throughout their lives.

My mam is still alive and in writing this blog post I have been thinking about what her legacy might be, and I think it will be the focus on education that she has. She didn’t get a chance to attend secondary school like so many people born in the forties in Ireland. But she made sure that all of her children got the chances she never did. Graduation days from college for me were all about her and my dad because without them, and particularly my mam, I simply would not have been there. I am hoping that when my Doctoral graduation eventually comes around she will be there to share the celebrations with me … I just need to get a wriggle on and make the graduation happen now!

And finally, a blog post on legacy would be incomplete without mentioning Bianca Ni Ghroghain. Bianca was a teacher in the edtech community in Ireland that I had the good luck to call a friend. Those who knew her know the void she left behind when she died and yet her legacy lives on. Bianca was selfless in sharing ideas and thoughts on teaching and technology and her impact was brought back to me recently when I visited a school. The principal mentioned attending the ICT in Education conference in 2015, a conference I run for teachers, and meeting Bianca. He sent himself an email of ideas she shared which he told me he regularly returns to. I wonder how many others similarly return to ideas shared by Bianca over the more than 9 years since she died. There is a legacy!