Designing a Legacy That Inspires Through Thoughtful Life Planning
Let’s talk about legacy and our second half, and why safeguarding it through thoughtful planning is the most significant gift we can give ourselves and the people we love.
Legacies are long-lasting but delicate self-representations. Everyone gets one and, in most cases, everyone gets to influence the design of one through the special relationships, experiences and engagements we share with others during our lives.
Time for Legacy-Making
The most critical time for legacy-shaping, however, is during our Golden Years (65+ years) approach – the path 61 million people will be on by 2030, according to the National Institutes of Health. If a positive appraisal is important to you, then now is the time to consider how your financial, medical, legal and caregiving decisions will affect those in your inner circle – the people who ultimately decide how you will be remembered.
Negative experiences and refusals to plan for the future can reframe, mar or even wreck the legacy you’ve worked so hard to cultivate.
Receiving Someone’s Legacy
A few years ago, I was named the “person” for an older South Florida couple with no family in the picture. Unbeknownst to me, they decided I would make a trustworthy Power of Attorney and estate trustee should they run into any trouble during their sunset stroll. And boy, did they run into some of that.
I started getting cryptic calls and worrisome messages from their housekeeper about unpaid bills and unsafe living conditions – and worse. They needed help in nearly every area of their life – from bill-paying to liquidating homes to difficult and expensive 24-7 care. Two thumbs down and a million red-faced angry emojis don’t even begin to describe the experience.
Though woefully unprepared, I quickly learned how to fax POA documents and manage home healthcare, hospice support, home-selling, and – of course, how to find a home for all the stuff. Four years later, I’m still feeling PTSD from it.
This experience tainted and redefined my remembrance of the couple, especially the woman who had been my second mother for many years. She’s part of my earliest memories. An OG working mom, she had high standards and gave generously of herself to create opportunities for others. After the nightmare caregiving experience, those memories were reduced to angry reflections.
Now all I remember is all the multi-residence piles of stuff, the unfinished business, the refusals to think rationally and the wild stress that the entire last chapter of their life fire-hosed into mine. When I think of her now, all I feel is rage.
That is no way to leave a legacy.
What Kind of Legacy Do You Wish to Leave?
In Michael Hebb’s book, Let’s Talk about Death (over Dinner): An Invitation and Guide to Life’s Most Important Conversation, one of the conversation prompts is “What kind of legacy do you wish to leave?” This is such a critical thought! It is different for everyone, but who wants to pursue a legacy that is negatively charged, deplorable or so headshakingly painful no one wants to remember it?
A friend of mine was managing care and end-of-life care for his godmother, who passed away recently. As her power of attorney and “person” for all things essential during the past several years, he managed everything from her finances and caregiving to her medical and legal needs. Later, he was promoted to Stuff Director, which, as we all know, is one of the most challenging jobs out there when the client is a lifelong “collector.” He spent countless hours dedicated to this work.
Yet, when the end came, he was able to remember his godmother with fondness, penning a beautiful obituary that cemented a positive, most radiant rendering of her legacy. If I had to write an obituary after my experience, it would have been a big black Sharpie hash and 10 billion stab marks in the middle of ripped construction paper.
Reflecting Back to on Positive Times
I asked my friend if there was some relief in her passing. He said there was. He explained how he could now start reflecting on when she was great and at her prime. “There was a lot of good stuff overshadowed by lack of preparation and her overall decline. It’s good to get back to that.” That is grace.
I would love to have the same kind of reckoning one of these days, but I’m not there yet. Terrible, right? I’ll answer: yes, it IS terrible – terribly NORMAL. I’ve heard enough people with the same story to know this truth. Our relationships and situations are complex and different and emotionally unresolved.
Sure, there are bright spots, and yes, caregiving/management is usually based on a foundation of love and moral imperative. But it’s never easy. And sometimes it is steeped in so much muck, the best thing a person can do is to just walk around it or look away.
Legacy Is How We Live Our Lives
My friend’s godmother’s situation reminds me there’s one common denominator: how we live our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly – becomes our legacy whether we like it or not. Luckily, we have control over how we are remembered if we can dedicate ourselves to realistic planning, healthy communication and acceptance of our mortality as we approach our senior years.
We must protect the legacies we’ve worked our entire lives to build and refuse to let obstinance, poor preparation and ego reduce us to a pitiful portrayal of how NOT to be during our second half.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How are you making sure your legacy is fondly remembered? What steps are you taking now to plan for this outcome?
Tags End of Life Planning
Downsizing from a large home with way too much storage to a small apartment 13 years ago while in our 50s was the best thing for our legacy. As I cleared out all of the things, I had friends and acquaintances over, and they loved receiving what I no longer needed or wanted. The rest was donated to charity.
Both my mothers-in-law have been good examples of how lift the burden off your loved ones while you still have time to plan. My first mother-in-law went through all of her belongings, art, jewelry, antiques, you name it, and attached notes about where each piece belonged when it was practical. She asked everyone in the family to tell her about something they really wanted and then she would write your name on the back of the painting, etc. Sometimes she just went ahead and gave it to you! My second mother-in-law had paid for and planned her own funeral in great detail many years ahead of time, even though she lived to be 99, and it all went off without a hitch.
I went through an extended nightmarish situation with my mother in her last five years as a dementia patient and through settling her estate. Ultimately she made some poor choices and delegated authority to people who are not trustworthy. Had she been wiser, more assertive and more decisive years earlier, her legacy and our family would likely still be intact. I loved my mother very much. I do not resent any of my experience, but I do feel an obligation to myself, my legacy and the loved ones I will leave behind to make better choices and better decisions. I feel we have a strong obligation to downsize our lives and distribute our possessions while we have the competency and the energy. I want to try to avoid being on anyone’s timeline who is going to be eager to get my life over with. We have to know that if we give up skills, responsibilities and control, we don’t get it back. It’s gone forever. We have to work at staying relevant and interesting. avoid complaining and never provoke guilt in the younger generation. My goal is that no one will have to make any significant or prolonged sacrifices of time, money or energy for my benefit at the end of my life. It’s a process. I’m early in retirement. I will try to keep an open mind and be willing to make changes as I learn more and my life evolves.
Unfortunately, more common than we think, poor planning, delegation to the wrong people, and holding onto possessions too long can be the demise of a family. That’s the saddest thing.
After hearing how a good friend spent nearly every weekend of a year clearing out her deceased father’s home and hearing her laments of exhaustion and frustration, I’ve vowed to keep it simple. Give away what I can now, so it can be useful, and keep whatever is necessary to maintain a happy existence with minimum possessions. Using promised inheritance as a way to manipulate has been an odious practice that I want no part of. There is joy in seeing gifted items being used while we’re alive, so why not now?
I feel for you! A very human reaction to a mess you didn’t want to inherit. Makes me think, selfishly, can I deny being an estate trustee if asked? Based on your experience, I just might. I have a chore half done upstairs, sifting through bins of memorabilia and pictures. Your post inspired me to part with lots more in the big black garbage bag and keep only the best of the best.
I have declined twice.