DAY 194

"Empty and fleeting my years are gone
And now, quivering and frail, I must fade away.
 
My legacy
What will it be?
Flowers in spring,
The cuckoo in summer,
And the crimson maples
Of autumn... (...)"

Daigu Ryokan 

I am at my mom´s house this weekend because the first Sunday of May we celebrate Mother´s day. Every time I am here my musings on our legacy, the importance of memories and the need to preserve our story take on a new fresh impetus. Of course, this is due to my emotional mood: my mother is growing old -she will be 88 next November- and she is the last member of my family who belongs to a  generation who were born during the first decades of the past century. So when I´m back home I have the feeling that all those things (their legacy, our shared memories, the story of my ancestors) is somehow vanishing

On the other hand, I also experience a sort of detachment when I analyze this issues from a more spiritual perspective because from this viewpoint I am clear about the following premises:

This is the cycle of life, so we shouldn´t react to it in an excessively dramatic way

Nothing is going to be lost: all the experiences of my mother will stay not only filed away, but also will keep on exerting their influence on next generations, no matter if they know it or not

This influence will survive throughout time because every person who is here change the world in infinite ways... and leave a trace that lasts because we all connect meaningfully with someone along the way

We can conceive the mentioned concepts –legacy, memories and story- in much more complex, wider, nicer and subtler way and not so linked to tangible goods or immediate events…