Why do people care so much about how we are remembered? Every single person you encounter in life will remember you differently. Logically thinking, if 10% of people remember you as funny, if 20% of people remember you as boring, if 25% of people remember you as kind, and if 30% of people do not remember you at all, how are you supposed to be rememebered in the grand scheme of things? Majority of people’s memories of you do not even have conclusive results. Why care so much about our legacy?

Years ago, all the graduating students of my high school class were gathered in classroom for a quick meeting with our principal. Our grad prank (blocking all the parking spaces in the school) came as a surprise! - and therefore - our tiny act of defiance was not in line with the school’s values of servant leadership. In a convoluted train of thought, our grad teacher speaker refused to speak for us because he had no good wishes for a class that did not care about respecting authority.

We still graduated and we still had another teacher speaker who graciously filled in for the other one. But the question: “How would you like to be remembered?” stuck in my mind like vomit waiting to be regurgitated from a toxin filled crevice in my body. All the jocks and the student council president in school asked that question and agreed that they wanted to be remembered for their contributions to the school. I thought - why do 18 year olds think that their achievements equate to contributions deemed so important that they must be remembered for generations to come? Is that touchdown so mind blowing that it must never be forgotten? Is organizing a school prom with an Under the Sea theme so grand that it must be the cover of an editorial style magazine? Do we really think of ourselves as so important?

Fast forward 10 years later - my first grandparent had passed away and it was my first personal experience with death. How did people remember them? They detoriated and never became the picture of health after a fall. This fall was caused by goofing and playing around with a coworker. That coworker will always remember them with guilt. Is this the extent of their legacy on earth? With guilt? Or is there more to it than this? Different people remember that grandparent differently. To me and my cousins, they loved us by providing us with experiences we will never forget. To my mother, they were the first blessing she has ever experienced in life. To a stranger, they were just an old person who met their time. How should they be remembered?

Fast forward another 10 years, I am working and processing pallative care orders for my patient. To some of my coworkers, palliative care might mean more work and the possibility of not going home on time. To that person’s family, having your loved one be on palliative care was a prospect that was so final and terrifying that it would induce unthinkable amounts of grief. Or in an alternate reality, that person may have no one left in the world - that to be on palliative care is a blessing that was long overdue.

How would you like to be remembered? This is such an entitled and insenstive question as everybody has different realities. We cannot tell the people we leave behind how to remember us. In our optimism, we would like to be remembered for the things we contributed to the world. We would be remembered for how we shared our blessings with others. In our pessismism, we would not be remembered at all. We would disappear like dust that fades and go back to the depths of the earth. Why even ask this question when we are remembered by the people left behind - when we have no control about how our legacy affects them? If they remember us well then good for you. But - If we don’t have anybody to remember us, where would our legacy go? If we leave behind people who remember the version of ourselves that is not who we really are, is leaving that legacy so valuable?