The trappings of legacy.

And how it took a movie to bring personal legacy into the mainstream.

Have you ever noticed that at family gatherings the stories that are shared often relate to a moment in a family’s history? We exchange memories of loved ones and precious times, delighting in anecdotes, that can bring great joy and humour, but also reflective sadness. Such get-togethers often highlight the individual who is the custodian of a family’s history. These keepers of our past are usually those who have acquired wisdom through longevity and their lived experience and knowledge is immeasurable and invaluable.

Their individual lives have helped to shape our society. And for those willing to listen they can provide a microcosm of a time before computers, apps and super cruise ships. A time when people met partners at dance halls and barbeques, when making time to sit down and talk over dinner was normal, not an aberration in busy lives.

Their knowledge is a family’s history.

(Image courtesy: Medium)

If we are lucky each of us hold a family history in our hearts and minds. If it’s not cemented by DNA, it's one forged through friendship and community. Everyday we’re contributing to society’s legacy. Earth’s legacy. We walk through our lives working, eating, sleeping, loving, dreaming. Contributing. Every single day.

In historical terms a legacy refers to something handed down from an ancestor or predecessor. A small keepsake of remembrance or if fortune smiles something more substantial. But legacy is a shapeshifting word of grand portions. A legacy is also what’s left behind after an event. It is the result of a specific action. One that can be created by an individual act, a group of people or wily mother nature. It can be a family Bible handed down through successive generations. It can be political - think Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke who stopped the Tasmanian Gordon-below-Franklin dam project and introduced Medicare. These two acts helped save a pristine wildness and delivered medical care to many. They were gifts to the Australian people and a government’s legacy.

Legacy can be life changing when it involves advances in medicine and devastating in the aftermath of man-made and natural catastrophes.

(Image: Gladiator theatrical release poster 2000 United International Pictures)

Closer to home, legacy can be the affect that a person has on others while he or she are alive. This is a different kind of legacy. An important one. As Maximus stated in the 2000 movie Gladiator,

‘What we do in life, echoes in eternity’.

Our actions do have significance after we are gone. Will you be remembered as a true friend by those closest to you. A trusted confident. A lover of animals. A diligent employee. A fair-minded employer. A politician who has the absolute good of her/his constituents in mind.

It is the small and often inconsequential acts of kindness at any given moment that give others joy and comfort. Considering the uncertainty of the world, as individuals that’s the greatest legacy we can give during our lifetimes and it doesn't cost a cent.