Nobody Will Remember Your Stuff When You Die. But Hopefully, They’ll Remember You
Leaving a legacy, simple-style
As I hurtle towards my forties, I’ve found myself increasingly interested in my ancestry. It helps that mine is rather interesting, filled with characters lifted straight out of a Dickens novel.
I’ve never concerned myself much with the past. Like almost all young people I was less interested in what my fusty old ancestors were up to and much more interested in what the future held for me.
And I’ve never been a big fan of “legacy” with all the trappings that word entails. Battles have been fought and blood has been shed for those six letters — I’ve never understood it.
But like all humans, I have a need to feel part of something larger and my ancestry satisfies that itch to a certain extent.
My mother recently took a trip to our ancestral home in South Wales with two of her sisters. She’s returned full of stories of her grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles who occupied a couple of houses and surrounding land just outside a small village.
I asked her, what does she remember most about that time spent in the backwaters of hilly Wales?