2006-09-06 - 6:54 p.m.
It seems that the watchword for this year is "Legacy". Ever since my mother died this past March and I have been looking back on her life now that it is "complete", I've been thinking more and more about who it is that people have been and what they have left behind. With her having been primarily a mother (although that certainly wasn't all that she was), it is easy to see that much of her legacy "is", or "resides in" her children. But what if a person doesn't have children, as I do not?
Now I hear from one of my sisters who lives close to our father and goes to see him once a week that he is doing worse than we thought. My brother had made the "prediction" that Dad would live to 93, which is slightly more than three years from now, but when I told my sister that, she said, "No way is he living to 93." She didn't even think 91.
When we were all there last Christmas, my brother wanted to take a memorial portrait of Dad. While my brother was setting up the camera and tripod, Dad was getting dressed and running around frustrated because he couldn't find a special Navy belt buckle that he wanted to have on for the picture. I asked my mother, "Why is he so hot to find this Navy belt buckle?" This is some possession I had never even heard of before.
"Oh, his mind is completely back in the Navy, now," she explained.
"The Navy?" I said. "That was even before he was married or had a family," [which to me means it is part of "prehistory"], "why is that so important?"
"I guess he thinks that was the only time he ever accomplished anything."
I was shocked at that. "The only time he ever accomplished anything? He has had a lifetime of achievement greater than anything I can even imagine! He's lived a life of astounding accomplishment, doesn't he know that?"
"Does he know that you feel that way?" she asked me. "Have you ever told him that?"
Well, actually, yes, I have said it many times, although I don't suppose I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him until his head rattled. "Do... you... understand... how... many... amazing... things... you... have... done... and... how... much... we... love... appreciate... and... admire... you?" No, I'm not going to take the blame for not making that so loud and clear to him. I think it's all internal to him whether he can accept the truth of that, or not. How can I judge whether what he accomplished was what he set out to fulfill? Maybe he really is a failure. Perhaps what he did never meant anything to him. Perhaps he never made his most important childhood dreams come true, whatever they were. Maybe the only human being in the entire world who can judge the meaning of one's accomplishments is one's own self. But one thing I can say, if that man "never accomplished anything", then in comparison I must be one of the lowest slime balls that ever slithered across the mudball of the earth.
And in a way, and especially lately, it has been all-to-easy for me to actually think that.
My favorite magazine (City Journal, published by The Manhattan Institute) arrived the other day. It is the only magazine that I get, or have ever gotten, in which I actually sit down and read every word from cover to cover, starting on page one and going all the way through to the very end. And up until yesterday, every word in there was solid gold, shining enlightenment and meaning onto the events of the world and in the process making the cells of my brain sing with intellectual pleasure.
But then yesterday, I read an article in there that kicked me in the balls. Written by some twirpy woman named Kay S. Hymowitz, who has to be somewhere in her late 20s, early 30s, I would guess, based on the sound her disgust She was bitching about famous baby boomer feminist writers, such as Gloria Steinem, Gail Sheehy, and Erica Jong, who, now that they have stepped over into the "elderly" stage of their lives, are attempting to redefine meaning for the remainder of their lives, including somehow managing to obtain lots of sex. Ms. Hymowitz seemed very put off by the fact that these women were not retiring to Fort Lauderdale to spend the rest of their days playing Canasta (and being celebate). Instead, they were doing things like joining the Peace Corps (which I didn't even know still existed), going back to college, or starting new careers as novelists. And having lots of sex. I mean, the very shame of it, because, you know, what people over the hill are supposed to do is gracefully disappear from life, go out to graze on a pasture that is hopefully very, very far away. That is, that is what you think until YOU get there. Then it's a different story.
I see myself thinking I want to do the same thing. Definitely I have some books I want to write and publish. And there are several whole new things I could see myself getting into which include brand new studies and involvement with foreign countries. I feel like in the first half or two-thirds of my life, I spent all my time doing what other people wanted and needed. Isn't that the way it is for everybody else, including Kay S. Hymowitz? She may not feel that way right now, but when she reaches her 50s, I am all but certain she will. When somebody like my father feels he managed to do nothing after World War II, then how are most of the rest of us going to feel about our lives?
What Kay S. Hymowitz was accusing the aging feminists of being (and I guess she hoped they would finally grow out of it) is what my whole generation has continuously been accused of since day one, and that is being narcissistic. We're all just gazing at ourselves in a mirror, concerned with only our own internal process, ad nauseum. The ME generation, which I guess means that in looking into ourselves, we exclude from consideration everybody else, as in that joke of "So, what did you think of my performance? Okay, enough about you, let's now talk about me."
Well, my pattern with reading something like that is to at first get angry, and then later make an internal shift into wondering what it is that makes this person say these things. Could it be true? ARE we all just too self-concerned?
This takes me right back to my question about "legacy", then, as in, "what is it that I am doing for others and leaving behind in the world?" Not so much that I can see. And that's depressing.
But then when I begin to try to figure that one out, wonder just what it is that I could or should do, a wee small voice inside my head says, "Well NOW look who is being NARCISSISTIC!" I mean, the whole idea of "what should I do to assure that I will be loved and celebrated once I am gone?"...I could hardly imagine anything more egoistic and self-centered than that line of thought! Instead, I better just rush right out and buy that Canasta deck, and then as quickly as possible fade from view out of sheer embarrassment.
It's not something I can figure out or should plan for, I realize that. My place regarding "legacy" is to honor those who have gone before and had meaning to me. That's probably why my mother's response to that question concerning my father was "Have you told him that?" Regarding legacy, it doesn't really exist at all without our own observation and appreciation breathing life into it for others. As far as the particular person is concerned, and that includes all of us whose time has not yet come, there's nothing to be done but to live life with as much truth and authenticity as possible, and then let the cards fall as they may.
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