Remember You’ll Be Remembered

When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept over him and kissed him.

GENESIS 49:33–50:1

HOW MANY MAGAZINE ARTICLES AND BLOG POSTS HAVE ASKED celebrities what they’d like written on their tombstones? Too many to count, that’s for sure. But I could care less what someone carves in stone; I’m far more concerned about what gets carved on the hearts of my children.

Sometimes I think it helps to take a step back and remind ourselves that our infants won’t always be babies; our toddlers won’t always be elementary students; our teens won’t always be adolescents. We are influencing future adults, some of whom will remember their parents with casual indifference, some with malicious conflict, and some with passionate gratitude and love.

Donna Isaacson’s father was fifty-seven when she was born. He took her hiking, gave her a love for the outdoors, and explained to her his passion for Indian artifacts. Though Donna came relatively late in his life (he was seventy by the time Donna reached her teens), he made room for his daughter and reaped a relationship filled with gratitude and love. I’ll let Donna tell the story:

God gives us things in life we don’t always ask for, . . . and sometimes he tests our strength even further. For me, that ultimate test was my father’s death. He passed away four years ago at the age of ninety-eight, and there was no consolation in the fact that he had led a long, fulfilling life. If I heard that one more time during his funeral, I thought I would lose it. It didn’t matter to me how and when he died; he was gone. The one person on earth who gave me unconditional love was no longer there for me. With his passing, a huge hole was ripped out of my heart, and I plunged into that deep, dark hole with uncontrollable grief.

As my mourning period continued, I went deeper and deeper into that black abyss. For four years, I engaged in a death wish, slowly dying inside. I had no social life. My life consisted of two things: work and sleep. At night, I’d crawl into a cave under the sheets and get into a fetal position, hoping sleep would come and for a few moments I could forget that he was gone, dream that he was still with me. It hurt so badly.^a

While I hope and pray my children don’t descend into a depression like this after I’m gone, I couldn’t help but marvel at the pathos of a daughter who misses her father so much that she pined to sleep, only so that she could dream he was still with her.

Thankfully, Donna finally broke out of her stupor when someone pointed out that her father, whom she loved and missed so much, wouldn’t want her to suffer this way; to honor him properly, she needed to take her life back, and she did.

Author Gail Waesche Kislevitz faced similar emotions when her mom passed:

I was still in denial over the death of my mother a few years back; the world I knew ended with her passing. Part of me died with her; I was empty inside, depleted of humor, drive, and ambition. Just getting through the day was a goal. I was desperately trying to learn to live my life without her, and I was failing miserably.^b

The next time you pick up yet another toy, wash yet another dinner plate or sippy cup, show up for yet another soccer or volleyball game, and you feel tempted to think, “Is this really worth it?” remember that you’re going to be remembered. You’re laying down an impact that can be so profound that, even if you live to be a hundred years old, your kids won’t want to let you go.

Don’t take this for granted! As I write this, I’m thinking of a college football coach, who, until recently, had more wins than any other coach in his division. The last several years, though, his program hasn’t enjoyed nearly as much success, and every year more and more people are saying he has stayed too long, that he should just get out of the way. In companies across the world, older executives labor under the shadow of the eager ambitions of younger workers who can’t wait for the older execs to retire and move on. Aging actors and actresses find their earlier roles increasingly given to younger stars. The world is set up so that one generation quickly replaces the previous one.

But when you go home, you can enjoy being in one of the few places where people genuinely want you to stick around forever.

In most cases, our children are going to grow up and we’re going to die. They will then live with memories of our involvement or our absence, our encouragement or our malice, our support or our contempt. As we hold that little five-year-old who just scraped her knee, I guess the question we could ask ourselves is this: What do I want her to be thinking fifty years from now when I’m the one near death and receiving medical care—and she’s the one holding my hand to comfort me?

Heavenly Father, help us to focus today on what we want to be remembered for tomorrow. It’s so easy in the day-to-day events to miss the big picture, but let that big picture redirect and refocus our parenting from this point on. In Jesus’ name, amen.