Legacies
The yellowing stationery I hold in my hands tonight bears the indelible creases of its 67-year history. The amber imprint marks the place where a photograph once traversed oceans to build hope and ease the ache of distance between two halves of a couple in love, separated by the aggressively inhuman demands of war. As I hold this precious piece of both human and personal history in my soft hands, free and unscathed by conflict or hard labor, I absorb these words and gratefully harbor the weight of longing and suffering carried by each stroke of each letter. These aging communications and the courage, love, and hope they have couriered through time are the origins of my paternal grandparents’, and thus my own, legacy.
I did not know my grandfather well when he lived. Though as a kid I shared his space often, we conversed very little that I can remember. Our togetherness was never uncomfortable or awkward; rather, we always held an easy silence between us. I experienced my grandfather as a kind, quiet man who worked hard as an electrician his entire post-military life. He raised three remarkable children. He hated pizza and loved peanut butter, football, fishing, and my grandmother. Though he never spoke the words out loud in my hearing, I sensed that he was proud of his family and the people they became.
What I don’t know about my grandfather could fill volumes. I know little of his childhood, what kind of trouble he raised as a teenager, what he dreamed about and hoped for before the war swelled like a wave and crashed over his young life, but for all that I don’t know, what I do know significantly impacts the way that I think about legacy today. In my life, my grandfather was a man who showed up – to a thousand of my rather boring elementary and middle school cheerleading events, choir concerts, and plays – in his quiet, consistent way, my grandad showed up. Even when his illness and pain moved from an invisible, internalized suffering to a discernible shrinking under the heaviness of chronic infirmity, still, he showed up. And because he showed up, my grandmother could, too. Though my grandfather had to have seen the worst elements of humanity in the war and though it’s likely that he suffered from PTSD to some degree, he came home and made a home with my grandmother. For whatever strength he had to find within himself to keep showing up every day in the best way he could, I’m grateful. Because he was who he was, in mutual strength, my grandmother became the person she was, and because of the person she was, I know what it means to be loved well.
For as long as I can remember, my grandmother held time and space for me, my sister, and all of her grandkids. We played in the warm summer rain in the front yard on her concrete sidewalk and ground her lilacs into “soup” for her during my childhood. In my middle years, we watched movies on her orangish-brown shag carpet, ate buttery toast from the same dented cookie sheet cooked under the broiler of her turquoise oven, and downed a Coke and a Pecan Sandy at 10 a.m. without fail. We went to the mall, to Sno-To-Go, to church, and to Furr’s Cafeteria. She always had cold water in a glass jar waiting for us in the fridge and a Jergens-scented tender hug for us as soon as we came in the door. As a young adult, I brought each of my sons and daughters to meet her as soon after their arrivals as possible, and not long after my last baby was born, I held her hand as she wept through my grandfather’s funeral, wishing deeply that I could absorb even a little bit of her pain. In the midst of all of these memories, though, what I remember and value most is her interest in me and all of her grandchildren as human beings.
Dessie Dell Reese used her some of her limited time on this planet to make us feel important, and she habitually made us feel welcomed and loved in her home. Throughout my life, I called her often, letting her dependably warm words blanket me when disappointments and struggles threatened to douse my own inner fire.
I felt close to her in ways words could not possibly signify; and I miss the depth of that connection and her presence in the world every single day. I’m a grandmother now, too; not nearly the kind of grandmother she was to me, but because of her, I want to do better, always, for the children and grandchildren I have and am yet to have. Because of her legacy, deeply imprinted on my little life, I aspire to build a legacy of my own, brick by brick…
But the notion of legacy and the drive to build something beautiful for my posterity is often evasive. I’ve often hoped that my legacy would be built through the written word, and in my mind, that’s always looked like publishing books, leaving my life in words behind for those who come after me should they ever want to know about where they came from and the hope someone once carried for their lives. Eight months ago, though, I met with a literary agent for the first time ever about a book I wrote about our lives through the lens of foster care and adoption. I felt relieved and even giddy to have finally gotten a meeting after several unproductive attempts, and everything about it – the way I found this agent, the timing of the meeting, the instant rapport we had – it all felt like the divine culmination of many years of hope. At the end of the meeting, she invited me to send her my work and talk ideas. My heart soared. One month later, her feedback lit up my inbox. I plowed into the message, certain that she would be “the one” – my literary agent match made in heaven. She offered many nice words about our story and our hope in the midst of it, very appreciable sentiments. She recognized the need for community and belonging and understanding for other families in similar circumstances; I had hoped she would infer that. Then…then the message turned. In one line, she quickly commented on the lack of marketability of such a project (no, no, no!), and she concluded words no writer ever wants to hear about the book-baby they’ve loved, labored over, given painful birth to, and sent out into the world alone – “I just couldn’t really connect with the writing. I need to believe in the books I represent, so I’m going to pass on this project.” Gut. Punch. The literary agent of my dreams not only rejected the work, but her problem with my beloved book-baby was not the theme or subject matter; there was nothing I could objectively point to and say “Well, I couldn’t help that,” or “She just doesn’t represent books in this genre.” It was my writing; the way I poured my soul onto the page, the way I crafted the words that represent my inner world, and if they weren’t good enough for my literary-agent-soul-mate well then, what did that say about me? Was it time to put down the pen? Was this rocky relationship I’ve had with writing for all of my adult life really just a weird remnant of childhood, like wanting to be a rock star or wanting to be a famous actress? What was the point and why did I want this path anyway? All the questions jostled and surged and crashed about in my uncommonly sad spirit for days, and finally, in the stilling turbulence, the questions that rose to the surface were these: “What about writing is important to me? What about the art matters and really feeds my soul, and why? Is this really a critical piece of my legacy and if so, what does not being published mean?” In the shadow of these questions, the vibrant image I’d created around publishing and legacy dimmed significantly.
I didn’t write another word for seven months, not in a journal, not on a blog, not one letter, anywhere. I sat, instead, with those final questions. So many answers swirled within me. I cling to no illusions that what I write or how I write is God’s gift to the reading public; it’s not, and that’s ok. I understand that rejection is part of the game. I know the stories about the hundreds of rejections Frank Baum collected in his journey toward publishing Wizard of Oz; I know the rejection histories of Gone with the Wind, Lord of the Flies, even Harry Potter. I do not believe I am the next Ernest Hemingway; I’m just a mom, a friend, a human who sometimes thinks she might have something to say. I am who I am, and I have what I have to offer. On my best days, I know that’s enough. But despite my many, many attempts to ignore it, I’ve always experienced writing is an almost-living almost-breathing being that simply will not let me go. Looking back, the seasons of my life in which I could not find the space to even journal once in a while were the seasons in which I most deeply lost touch with myself, with what matters to me, and with my connection to the life-force that I call God. I’ve wrestled with that fact nearly every day since that kind-but-still-rejection rejection graced my gmail. This meeting with my agent-to-be was the closest I’ve ever been to realizing the image of the kind of legacy-building writing success I’ve carried with me since I was in middle school, and to be able to see it, smell it, taste it, and then lose it…
Discouragement was staring me down, hard. Through a lot of recent therapy and intentionality, I am learning to sit with uncomfortable emotions, not to just rush through them. Though I wouldn’t have chosen rejection the first time, and I probably wouldn’t choose it again, I’ve begun to see this rejection and subsequent discouragement as a gift in the opportunity to slow down, to pause, to listen for the deeper understanding that might be had in it. I’m not all the way through these questions yet; maybe I never will be, but the few answers I am finding have gnarled and inextricably tangled roots that have much less to do with opportunity and effort than with self-perception, self-worth, and how I assign success and value to what I do. I don’t yet know much, but much like my knowledge of my grandfather, what I do know matters tremendously: Strip away all the messy desire for success and renown and praise (because that’s definitely in my motivational mix), and one of the strongest reasons I have for writing has to do with the hope that through my own transparency, I might be able to help a few of the people I loved in my time on this planet. So many writers’ words, published and not, have helped me get through parenting, cancer, insecurity, and faith. And maybe, just maybe my words might help someone I’ve not yet met, too. I want my children and my grandchildren and anyone whose path crosses mine to stand on my shoulders and see farther than I ever could. I want to write about the journey I’m on, the struggles I have, and the feelings I feel so that readers, whoever they may be, are invited to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the journey they are on, the struggles they have, and the feelings they feel - whatever they are- are so, so okay just the as they are. I want people in my life to know that they are not alone, not in any failure, not in any feeling, not in any challenge, not in any loss. I want my tribe to know fully what I am just beginning to glimpse: that they, just as they are, in their most powerful strengths and their most humbling weaknesses, are gifts to those whose lives they touch, and likewise, that every person they are privileged to encounter, beautiful and beautifully flawed as they might be, are gifts to them on their journey even if it takes a lot of time (and therapy) to see that. I want them to know for sure that hope and help can ALWAYS, without exception, be found, and that love is always worth it. Always. The best way I can think of to do that is to write and write and write, and if my words are never read by another soul and if they help no one, no word will be written in vain, because I will have helped myself be more centered, more connected, more whole-hearted, and that in itself, just might be legacy enough.
When I look at the lives that my grandparents led, by any external measures, they were not extraordinary. They made no world-changing discoveries; they won no Olympic games; they held no positions of leadership in government, but when I look at their lives through the lens of the letters I read tonight, I hear such a different narrative. Many, many men who saw what my grandfather saw and did things my grandfather did survived a war but didn’t survive themselves. They outlasted starvation only to drink themselves and their memories to death. They watched friends die gruesome deaths and came home to physically and verbally abuse the people they loved out of that pain. For many, once the physical war was over, the war within began. I strongly suspect that my grandfather suffered greatly and struggled inside. I have no doubt that the loss he experienced haunted his dreams and that at times, it was probably tempting to run, to self-destruct, to do anything to forget. For my grandparents, what made them extraordinary weren’t their acts or accomplishments, but who they were able to become in the aftermath of hatred, destruction, and loss. The fact that they were able live through what they lived through and go on to love each other, to raise children, to be a part of a community, to live ordinary lives, that is precisely what made them extraordinary. They were not perfect people, and that fact strengthens their legacy all the more. My grandparent’s legacy, birthed in this fading script, teaches me that I don’t have to do world-shaping things with my life to make a difference. I don’t have to have a New York Times bestseller; I don’t have to speak to thousands; I don’t even have to have a book contract, or a speaking tour, or even an agent at all. Showing up just as I am with whatever I have is enough; loving the people in front of me the best I can is enough; doing the ordinary things with ordinary love is enough. Because I have been loved well by another, I want to love others well, and that is legacy enough.
Even so, I pause tonight to consider that the only way I was able to learn this piece about legacy, especially from my grandfather, is because of what he wrote, even though he explicitly states that he hates writing several times in his letters. So…I write. In this season of my life as I think about legacy, I’m writing this blog to capture our journey and our discoveries of love along the way for my sons, my daughters, those I am fortunate to call friends, and those I have yet to call friends should they ever seek to know. I invite anyone to come along to not just to read but also to share in this space in whatever matters to them. If you’re reading this, you belong here, and I hope that you will be able to wrap my words around you should you ever need to remember that WE all fail, WE all struggle, and WE are all worthy anyway.
Thanks for finding this, thanks for pausing your life here, and thanks for getting up and existing on this day, in this hour, in this moment. Your presence in the world matters to me. Your presence matters to those around you, even if all you ever do is quietly show up. I’m grateful our lives are crossing paths, even if only in this way, even if only for this moment. Thank you.
