Lessons from my Dad’s Grave
Few experiences have altered my life more than that of losing my father. The sting of his death wrecked me. It did for many reasons but especially because his death felt like a fluke in the system. It was sudden and unexpected. He was only 47 and had no apparent life-threatening health concerns. There was no time to prepare or plan or say goodbye because it happened so instantly. In my mind, my dad still had the other half of his life ahead of him.
I was 26 when my dad died. And up until that time, I was blinded by invincibility. Not everyone dies at an old age having lived a full life with fond memories and surrounded by the people they love. But I didn't expect to be confronted with the kind of death that strikes a blow when you’re not looking and knocks the wind right out of you.
There’s no part of your life that grief doesn’t touch. Its process is messy and painful and continual.
When it seems like grief is finally put to rest, there are future losses that resurrect its pain. Dad never got to meet my husband. He never walked me down the aisle. He never met my daughter. There will always be more of my life he will miss. Although it’s been a long journey from pain to healing for me, the most life-altering change has been what dad’s death taught me about how I was living. And I’m grateful to him for that.
I’m sure my dad spent time thinking about his legacy, but he probably hadn’t considered the day he would no longer be able to do anything to change it. I’m certain he wasn’t prepared for that moment to come as early as it did. I think we often view legacy in such a future-focused way. It’s what happens after you remove your sphere of influence. It’s what happens after you retire or pass away. And there always seems to be plenty of time to focus on that later because that moment feels so detached from our day to day. But through my dad’s passing, I now see his legacy was everything that happened leading up to his death. He was shaping it whether or not he was prepared for its final impact.
Wherever you currently are in life, today is the most time you’ll ever have left for meaningful impact.
With each passing day, the supply of time decreases while the desire for impact increases. What a sobering reality check. It certainly was for me, even at 26.
This realization caused me to wrestle with three questions:
What is the measure of a life?
What am I doing with my time?
What makes my impact meaningful?
The Measure of a Life
I now see my life as measured by my words and my works. How we’re remembered is made up of the sum of our words and actions today, not who we hope to be in the future. The things I say and do every day drive the memory of me when I’m gone. In thinking of my final impact, would I be proud of what I’ve shaped up to this point or would I live differently?
The March of Time
We are all bound by time. Its effects are inescapable and discriminate against no one.
We often don’t like to think about how in this march of time, we all have one final day. I have a final memory with my dad. I remember even the smallest details of that last day we spent together most likely because I’ve replayed them a million times in my mind. It was only two weeks before he died, and neither of us knew we were shaping what would be my final memory of him. The last moment I ever shared with my dad, he hugged me and told me he loved me and was so proud of me. And I walked out the door of his workplace like it was just another day and never saw him again. I’m thankful that’s the memory he left me with. I cherish it because my dad made the moment count even when he didn’t know it would be our last. What a gift he gave me. When it comes to death, not everyone is afforded the luxury of positive memories. But my reality of having experienced final memories like this reinforces for me the significance of my moment by moment choices.
After my dad died, I watched his house get sold, his possessions get distributed to family or thrown away, his position get replaced, and his office get moved into. Every bit of evidence of his life slowly erased over time. What remains are the few possessions of his I have and the memories of him I carry. This has caused me to view things like conflict, achievement, petty words, and idle pursuits differently. Things I once thought were important no longer bear weight and other things I neglected to consider have become incredibly important to me. My dad’s death realigned my priorities in a sobering but realistic way. Time is a limited resource, and there are things that vie for it every day. Do we allow things to hijack it, or do we intentionally invest it?
The Meaning of Impact
Our lives amount to our words and our works which live on through the people we impact.
The evidence of your life lives on through the people who remember you. Your work, your tasks, your ideas, and your opinions all fade into oblivion unless there are people who remember and carry them on after you. My dad had some great accomplishments in his brief lifetime. But when I hear people talk about my dad, they don’t talk about those things. They talk about how he could make a stranger feel like a welcomed friend, how he lit up the room up with his humor and quick wit, and how he always made time when someone needed help. We are most remembered by the way we impact other people’s lives, either for better or worse. In looking at the relationships in my life, which way am I impacting?
These are hard lessons, and I wish I didn’t have to learn them from my dad’s grave. But I simply couldn’t have learned them the same way otherwise. Not with as much urgency. My dad has influenced so much about how I now approach life. Time is a limited resource, and I either invest it wisely or allow trivial things to rob it. My life is measured by the sum of my words and actions and their impact on others. I desire to be remembered for how I live intentionally in the words I say, the things I do, and the ways I invest in other people. I don’t do that perfectly, but where time exists there’s still opportunity to keep practicing.
That is legacy, and we shape it both in the big events of life and in the everyday ordinary moments in between. How are you building yours?