I find myself thinking about this word a lot at this time of year. We just participated in the 5th annual Socks Open which happens this time each year. On this day, I always take a moment to look around the room at the luncheon, take a second on the golf course and appreciate the beauty (for 5 years the weather has been absolutely beautiful on this day), and of course I take a minute or two to think about Michael Wierman.
When we were raising our family in Franklin, one of the community’s families lost their daughter. In honor of her they fundraised and eventually built an accessible playground in the community. Community members including my family actually assisted in building this playground. Every time I drive past the playground I think of Kayla and her family.
The show Friends got me through some difficult days in my life. As I struggled through the days, I would come home and watch Friends at the end of the night and laugh until I cried. The show gave me permission to smile and laugh at a time in my life that there didn’t seem like much to smile and laugh about. Matthew Perry’s death was like a gut punch for me. I truly felt like I lost a friend who was there for me when I needed them the most. Today, as I am living in much brighter days, whenever I hear that theme song or sit down and watch an episode I feel such gratitude to Matthew Perry and the rest of the cast for the peace and happiness they gave me.
I am so impressed how the Wiermans have continued to plan the Socks Open to not only remember and honor Michael but to also use the funds to give back to the community as a complete reflection of the type of person Michael was. Although the Wiermans themselves continue to grieve and think about Michael everyday, on this day an entire community remembers and celebrates Michael each year. I am not sure how many annual Socks Open there will be but I know for someone who only knew Michael for a short amount of time it truly impacts me every year in different ways.
Each year I commend the Wiermans for carrying on Michael’s legacy and I have regret that I did not do that for my sister or my dad who both left this world much too soon. I wonder if I would have created something similar and had a community regularly remembering them and talking about them if it would have kept their memories alive longer. Not that my memories of them ever go away but we just recognized 38 years that my dad passed and in a few days it will be 44 years that my sister left this world and there are not many people left in this world beside my brother and I who think about them on a regular basis or who I see on a regular basis who could share a story, even if it is the same one I have heard a hundred times before.
That’s the looking back. Then, I look forward–what kind of legacy will I leave and what does that even mean or look like. I actually looked up some definitions of legacy and many of them were about the monetary items left behind and unfortunately, there isn’t going to be much of that unless those lottery numbers come in some day! However, other definitions started talking about the character and values that you pass on and how people will remember you when you are gone.
Grief is such a confusing, tangled road to travel that leaves you and others analyzing and sometimes judging how we grieve and how we memorialize those we have and will lose. This is where I become a bit kinder with myself. I was very young when I lost my sister and dad and lacked so much emotional maturity at the time to even begin to process my grief, much less think about a way to keep their legacy alive. I think I just get sad knowing I don’t remember what my sister’s voice sounded like anymore or remember how secure I felt in my dad’s hug. I continue to do several things in my own ways to keep those I lost “alive” in my memories and I think I have many of their traits that live on within myself.
I still watch shows that my mom and I watched together no matter how horrible they are (i.e. Young and Restless) and I will continue to do so until they go off the air. Tom Jones is coming to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks. I have to admit I didn’t know he was still alive but my mom and dad saw him many times, especially on their trips to Las Vegas and I am feeling a pull to go and see him in their honor. Maybe not a very healthy way but I have carried on my parents’ and my cousin Mary’s gambling habits and I always have a vodka gimlet in honor of my dad. My good friend, Sue and I, had several nights in college that we had a few too many of those vodka gimlets. My family and I will go and eat at one of my mom’s favorite restaurants and I still wear one of my mom’s Packer sweaters. Some people might think I should move on and stop doing such things but I don’t have a Socks Open, a playground, or a TV show. These are the ways that I keep my people alive in my heart.
For those of you who are friends or family of people who have lost, do not hesitate to bring their names up to them and tell them a story–even if they already know the story. There was a friend of my dad’s that I would run into pretty regularly after he passed and he would always come up to me and catch up. The last thing he would say to me is, “I still think of your dad everyday Jill.” That made me feel so good that there were other people outside of my immediate family who still thought of him years after his death. I haven’t seen him in awhile but that comment still warms my heart.
Because of the circumstances of my sister’s death, we rarely talked about her after she died. My family did not know how to process her death individually, much less how to talk to each other or other people about her. To this day, my brother will apologize if he brings something up about our parents or sister because it’s sad but I enjoy talking about them, especially with him because he has so many more memories of them.
We are not all Dolly Parton who will leave millions of dollars to her causes, children will continue to receive her books, and we all will enjoy her music for the rest of our lifetimes. However, we have children, spouses, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who we will lose or they will lose us. What will we do to keep our memories of them alive? What will they do to remember us? I know for some these may seem like morbid questions but for me it has become a way that I continue to smile, laugh, and yes, of course, cry about all the incredible people who have come in and left my life.
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