What is your legacy?

When you lose the most important person in your life, you start thinking a lot about your life thus far and what the future holds.  Yes, you spend time thinking about what might have been, but eventually you learn to adjust your thinking to avoid drowning in sorrow, pity or anger.  I naturally went through the various stages of grief, but tried to think my way through them rather than let them control me.  I wasn't always successful, but I think the most important thing for a man to realize is that he has to let the sorrow win sometimes; you have to just do the sobbing and let it wash over and through you.

Stoicism is highly overrated and those tears can do a lot of cleansing.  I still have those sobbing moments and it's OK… your soul can only withstand so much and crying your eyes out can be a truly good thing.  I had a dream the other night that I was holding Andrea and just enjoying being close, feeling each others breath -- I woke up in tears, but later felt grateful that I had touched her again, if only in my sleep.

I was sick and quit work early yesterday.  With nothing better to do, I watched Tombstone.  What a great movie -- not necessarily accurate from an historic perspective, but an excellent cast and a super story.  Anyway, I was struck by the portrayal of Doc Holliday's death.  He had (has) a significant and notable legacy, but that is not what is in store for the vast majority of us.  Most of us aren't looking to be famous or end up as legends, we just want a "normal" life and that is what Wyatt Earp says in the movie as Doc is lying in bed, waiting for his TB to finally deliver him to his end.  Doc responded that there is no such thing as a normal life, just life.  Never mind the fact that Earp and Holliday were in different states when he died, the line in the movie is nonetheless discerning.

Andrea was sick so much in her last nine years of life that we never had much chance to develop close friends in our new home.  Had we stayed in Key West where we had truly great friends, she would have died earlier and painfully as the doctors there had repeatedly missed the signs of her melanoma.  Her skin cancer was diagnosed when we moved to Clearwater and at that time she was told she had a 50-50 chance of living another five years.  She lived nearly ten years more and we tried to make the most of it.  But we never had much of a social life here and as a result I have no close friends other than those at work.  I am very thankful for my work family because they are the ones who have sustained me through all of this.  In this situation you can't help but wonder about your legacy.

I have already lived a full life.  I worked in the thick of D.C. politics and like to think I made a real contribution.  I later had a remodeling firm that taught me new things about running a business and working shoulder-to-shoulder with good men who lacked education and opportunity but tried to make up for it by working harder than the next guy.  Andrea and I opened our B&B in Key West from scratch; we did the renovation ourselves and then set about marketing what we had developed.  The last three years we owned the business we had a 97% year-round occupancy rate; a nearly unbeatable achievement in that business.  And I finally ended up in the banking business where I have dusted off my management skills and have really enjoyed the opportunities I have had to develop the skills of others.

God never blessed us with children, and I don't want to end up as Doc was portrayed in the movie --dying with neither friends nor family.  I think about this from time to time because of my decision to move away for retirement.  Is this really a good idea?  Can I start over and create a close group of friends in another country?

The answer is yes.  Moving to a new community gives fresh opportunities to be recreated; to start anew and one by one, add the brush strokes of a brand new life to a fresh canvas.  I will have nothing but time to lend my talents to volunteer opportunities, become a part of a smaller community and learn new skills.  This can be my legacy.  No, it won't be passed down to my children.  But that doesn't mean that I can't enrich the lives of others.

My remaining family by blood (two sisters, a niece and a nephew) all live in or around Seattle.  I like visiting and love them dearly, but there is no way in hell I could live in Washington.  If the constant rain didn't kill me the wacko left-wing politics would.  My in-laws have talked about moving to LA to be near my brother-in-law and I have no desire to live in California.  Moving somewhere in Central or South America is the right choice.   Assuming I meet my goal of retiring at 62, I will have many years to travel, learn and become a part of a new community.