Legacy

Do you ever wonder how you’ll be remembered? Or if anyone will ever even think of you after you’re gone? What kind of mark you left on this rock spinning through the universe or impact you had on the parasites that infest it.

If you had any impact at all.

I like to think I was kind, and caring and that someone, somewhere will remember me as such.

I think, like everyone else, I just wanted to matter. I wanted to know this life wasn’t wasted just working and paying bills. I wanted to feel like I somehow altered something. That I made a difference to the energy of life. That I caused a ripple of good somehow.

I don’t know if I did. I suppose everyone views themselves through sort of rose coloured glasses, or beer goggles depending how you want to look at it. No one wants to think they’re shit or be remembered as such.

I produced four fantastic people. I didn’t raise them but they still carry a part of me and will pass that down. I hope they got the good parts. The strong, loving parts and they release those things into the world and that they are good and kind people.

It’s funny really. I got a stamp for all my books with my name on it. I love it. I love the fact that I know when I’m gone my books will carry on and provide an escape into other worlds and other lives for people. Or a source of learning and knowledge if you’re into that like I was. And my name will be stamped in the front of each book for its lifetime; through all the hands that hold it. I wonder if anyone will look at my name and wonder who I was and what I was like. If they’ll judge me by the book they’re reading and which way that judgement will go.

It’s funny to think about things like that. I imagine how crazy I must seem to someone just based on the random and entirely eclectic nature of the books I’ve collected.

Maybe they wouldn’t even be far off. Maybe I was crazy and random and eclectic. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing.