The end is coming.
For all of us. At some point, we will all be gone. Our lives will change, they will run their course and then they will end. Be prepared for the end. This post goes out for all parents out there with a few things I think you should leave for your children. In the last months of Dad's life, we made many visits with lawyers, accountants, etc to prepare for after he was gone. What I didn't realize at the time, was that he had been preparing for his departure for my whole life, even if he didn't know it. In my eyes, the eyes of a child who has lost her parent, these are the most important preparations that he made and the greatest things he left to me.
1. Leave your children with an identity. As babies and children, we are like tiny little sponges. We absorb everything around us, we just take it all in. When we hit our teen and adult years, we get squeezed and all of the stuff that we have absorbed comes out. That stuff becomes who we are. We are trying to figure out who we are, who we will be, how we will live in this world, big questions! Moms and Dads, help us figure it out. Don't question our passions, help us develop them into healthy and productive lifestyles and we will grow up believing that we have gifts and talents, something to contribute to society. Praise us for trying new things, for being brave, and for following through, and we will learn to love adventure and to step out into the great unknown, which is basically the rest of our lives, not with fear, but with determination and excitement. Let us fail. It will make us stronger and we will learn from it. Forgive us. It will teach us to trust that people make mistakes, but that people can be forgiving, and that we should forgive others. Help us discover who we are, what we love and what we will stand for and be about, (even if it is different from who you are.)
2. Leave them with memories. Life isn't about humans coexisting and excelling and moving on to the next thing. Life is about people sharing experiences, being involved in life, giving of yourself and impacting others. Make sure that in the midst of raising perfectly well-behaved children to function in modern society that you spend plenty of time creating memories. Some ideas? Take a spontaneous day trip, make a movie with action figures and the video camera (or a cell phone), spend the day driving or biking around town and document your trip, read together at night. Celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and holidays with traditions and be intentional about showing your family that time spent together is worth the time it takes.
3. Leave them with security. This doesn't necessarily mean to leave them with a lot of money (though, life insurance = good idea, no matter how old you are). It means teach them about money. Teach them to manage their finances, specifically how to budget and save. Let them see you handling bills and making payments, balancing a check book and making large purchases (like a house, or a car) when they are kids. Take them to the bank to open an account and help them become familiar with money orders, credit cards vs debit cards, how to avoid a negative balance, and the idea of debt free living. BUT in order to manage money, you have to make money. The best security you can leave your kids is the ability to provide for themselves. Make them work while they are living under your roof. Get their butts to the mall, movie theater, grocery store or restaurant and encourage them to work hard. If they do additional jobs at home, compensate them. Teach them that their hard work will result in compensation, just like slacking off or living off of YOUR hard work will result in empty pockets. As a side note, if they have the opportunity to intern or apprentice in a skill that they see a future in, let them do that, even if it doesn't pay. It is investing in their future with experience, and resume!
4. Leave them with a piece of you. Be involved in the lives of those you love, especially your family and children. When you are gone, they will remember you, or they will have truly lost you. Things you say often, your favorite foods, the fact that you cry during the Alamo movie with John Wayne...every time..., these are things that we hold onto. It is up to you to be transparent enough with your children that they will have pieces of you when you aren't with them anymore. My Dad always used to say "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" whenever we said anything ridiculous and usually self deprecating. and I will never forget that. He also loved Mary Poppins and saw Star Wars (every episode) on opening night. He cried when he talked about Patrick Henry or Davy Crockett and he shot skeet sitting down in a lawn chair while he pulled for himself. He never said a bad word, and I only heard him say "butt" three times...in my whole life... Be yourself to your family and let them see you cry. Let them see you laugh, let them see you stumble and let them see you repent. Let them see who you are, warts and all, because they will love you, warts and all, long after you have left them. And that is the greatest thing that you can leave behind for your kids.
Love.
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