As I watched the televised funeral of President George Herbert Walker Bush, and also with the recent passing of my Aunt Catherine, I was reminded about what matters most in life. No matter who a person is, whether it is someone you know from afar, like President Bush, or someone that you have known and loved your whole life, like my Aunt Catherine, in the end… it’s not about how successful one was. It’s not about how much money one had. It’s not about how many material possessions one had accumulated in a lifetime.

After a whole life has been built and lived, when one finally leaves this Earthly plane, what that whole life and everything in it boils down to… is a simple distillation of who that person was at their core and the positive difference they made in the lives of others. You see it in the final words of funeral remarks and grave markers. It is the impression they leave upon us, and are remembered by, even years later, as the memory of them stands the test of time.

As we must eventually follow behind them, ultimately, every passing day that we live, brings us one step closer to our own Earthy departure. When that happens, we will move beyond this plane to the next. I know, being so busy with living, we don’t usually think of our lives in that way. It’s a truly sobering thought, but it’s something to consider.

So, just for fun, we might consider the following questions. After all is said and done and when our time on Earth is finished, what impression did we leave on the world? How were we remembered? What difference did we make in the lives of others?

When we see the span of a life written down, it consists of the date of one’s birth, a dash (-), followed by the date of one’s death. What is important to realize is that the ‘dash’ between the date of our birth and death, is the life that person lived. 

Maybe we have never looked at it quite that way. And, maybe we have never thought that far off into the future. But it could be that it’s a good time to think about it now. You see, the ‘dash’ represents each of our lives. It also represents the unknown amount of life and time between our birth and death… and something to be decided by us while we either… live unconsciously, or whether we choose how we will live in a conscious way.

So, here we are at the beginning of a brand new year. A new beginning is a great opportunity for us to consciously make some choices. What will we do with the symbolic dash that is our life? What is a legacy worth leaving?

In closing, I leave you with a heartfelt New Year’s wish to all- May we take time to be the kind of person worthy of being remembered. May we leave an impression that inspires others. May we make a positive difference in this world, thereby, leaving it better than we found it.

And… in the final distillation of all our words and actions, and when all evidence of our physicality is gone, may our love and light still stand sturdy in the midst of those we leave behind.

It’s never too late to have a legacy worth leaving.