Writing Your Legacy
By Donnée Patrice Harris, Writers of Kern Branch
When my mother passed away, I took it upon myself, being the writer in the family, to put together her obituary for the newspaper and for the funeral program given to family and friends. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be. There were so many things about my mother I didn’t know. I had no clue in what city she was born and so many other things about her life that I wished I had asked about.
The people in my family I did ask had varying narratives and none of them matched. I had to piece together what I could from the plethora of stories being told to me. It was heart-wrenching and disturbing to know I didn’t really have any idea who my mother really was. I had no clue about her hopes and her fears and whatever else she would have wanted me to know.
I lamented to a friend of mine about this at the time of her death. My mother left us so suddenly and didn’t really leave anything about herself written down. There were no journals or diaries that we could use to get an insight into what she thought about life and what she was going through before she passed. I’m sure she thought she had more time to tell all of her stories to not just her nine children but to her 49 grandchildren and her 18 great-grandchildren.
A couple weeks after my mother’s death was Mother’s Day. That was a very difficult day for me. It would be the first time I had no mother to meticulously pick a card and gift out for.
That Mother’s Day was when my friend gave me a journal. It was called “A mother’s legacy.” Inside the journal were detailed questions about my life for me to fill in. “This way your children will know all there is to know about you,” she said to me.
I thought that was a great idea…until it came time to actually start filling it out.
I realized that writing down my legacy for my children was harder than I thought it would be. It made me think about a time when I would no longer be here. A time when they would have to go on without me like I was going on without my mother. I immediately closed the book and put it on a shelf never to be opened for the next ten years.
On occasion I would see it and think, “I should probably fill that out.” But the tightness in my chest would reoccur and I would walk away thinking I would use it eventually or maybe just give it away.
Every year on my birthday I thought about filling out a page and getting some information inside. It never happened. Then I discovered that Judy Billingsley was going to be our speaker on June 20th at the Writers of Kern meeting. Her topic…Writing, researching and publishing your family legacy. It wasn’t lost on me that the month prior our speaker, Annis Cassells, discussed journals and how to keep one.
I finally decided that the universe was speaking to me. This year, I needed to write my legacy or at the very least…start. As a writer, that should be the easiest thing I could do for my children and my grandchildren. Because that is what I have to give, other than my love,…my writing.
We have a talent as writers. We know words and that is what we gift the world. Our precious words that can be used to tell tales about ourselves and the things we’ve gone through in our lives. This is what we can leave to our families who may need and want to know who we truly are.
My mind went back to that book I was presented ten years prior. I meditated on my legacy and wondered if I had the courage to face my own mortality and give my kids the gift of knowing me beyond just the Momma who loves them, but as the woman I am.
Recently, I grabbed the book off my shelf. It was covered in a layer of dust. I removed all the filth from the cover and cracked it open. First question on the first page read, “What is your place of birth and your birthday?” I grabbed a colorful pen and filled in the information.
Now, that wasn’t so bad.
“Writing Your Legacy”
originally appeared in the June 2020 Writers of Kern newsletter