How to Live Your Legacy

I hear some of my friends and clients talk about “leaving a legacy.” Some make generous donations to beloved charities, help build schools in Africa, or create a financial trust for family members.

Many of my author friends are proud of the books they’ve written while others have spent countless hours producing video content in the hope it helps others shift their lives in positive ways. They love to talk about the legacy of their work.

Then there’s Ms. Carol.

I attended the funeral of Ms. Carol over the weekend. At 86, her already small frame had shrunk in the last few years as her ready smile and sparkling eyes also began to fade. Although her death wasn’t a shock to her loved ones, we all felt the sting. 

As I walked into the brightly lit sanctuary of the funeral home, I saw Carol’s legacy.

It was evident on the stoic faces of her sons who stood tall, hugging friends and relatives as they arrived. And on the tear-stained faces of the adult grandchildren. I saw it in the photos projected on the wall showing Carol’s bright smile throughout the decades from her childhood home in West Virginia through her eventual move to the nursing home. I could hear it in the giggles of friends who told stories about her during the reception.

Her legacy was apparent in other ways. Carol helped her husband start a church in northern Virginia over fifty years ago. She had told me about those days. How she baked items for the Coffee Hour, taught Sunday School, played piano and even drove a church bus at one point. At the end of the funeral service, a gentleman stood up and thanked Carol and her family for changing the course of his life. As a result of attending that church as a child, he had grown up to become a minister and devoted his life to serving God.

Carol didn’t preach the sermons at the church. She did something equally important. She lived – and modeled - a life of love. Love for her God, her family, and friends. That love was baked into the food she was quick to share, the music she chose to play, the hand she held out to others in times of need, the garden she loved so dearly…and in her beautiful smile.

Carol leaves a legacy of love. Turns out she was living her legacy all along and showed us how to do the same.