This month's Visiting Teaching message is/was "Strengthening Families through Temporal Self-Reliance." And no I haven't done my visiting teaching yet, and yes, I know tomorrow is the last day. But it will get done. I always get it done, one way or another.
I have recently been given Mrs. Bird to teach and I know she and Guy Smiley usually get home about 11:30 and hey, it's still the 30th tomorrow at 11:30 and, yes, I have done my visiting teaching with her before at 11:30 at night. Twice. Watch for more Mrs. Bird stories. I don't know about you but I'm hungry for a good Mrs. Bird story.
Okay, back to the subject, which is what can I really leave my children and grandchildren that might be precious to them?
In the visiting teaching message this paragraph jumped out at me:
"Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president, explains that “providing for ourselves and others is evidence that we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ… When [my mother-in-law] passed away suddenly last year, she left evidence of her self-reliant life. She had a current temple recommend and well-used scriptures and gospel study manuals. We lovingly divided up the pots, pans, and dishes with which she had prepared thousands of meals. She left us quilts she had made from old clothing. She believed in the old adage ‘Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.’ We saw the supply of food she had grown, preserved, and stored. Particularly touching were her little account books in which she faithfully recorded her expenditures over many years. Because she lived providently, she left some money she had saved for emergencies, and she left no debts! Most importantly, she had taught and inspired many others with the skills she had acquired during her faithful life.”
This made me think, what can I leave my children and grandchildren that will be of any value to them?
Money. That's the obvious answer isn't it? Well, kids, good luck with that.
I think money is a poor legacy. Well, kind of. Certainly it would be a great blessing, and if we can leave them money we will. What I'm pondering about are things that last, maybe even into future generations.
I hope they would like to know things about me, things that delight me, things that don't. Tonight, as I sat at the table, cutting and wrapping caramels, and watching a movie (with headphones on, because the TV noise drives Phil crazy) a little rain freshened breeze came through the slider, it nudged my hair a little bit and then was gone. It's cousin came later, bringing the smell of wet garden dirt, and other smells that Kramer would delight in, but that were lost to me. I was charmed by these ten seconds gifts. These kind of things are private, never told to another person, would that be something my children would like to know?
I would love to know about the things that charmed my mother. She didn't keep any kind of journal, how I wish she did.
I may start a kitchen journal and keep it there to record tiny observations, my little private thoughts. Maybe I will write about kitchen success and include recipes.
Right now (Friday) our back door neighbor boy is playing his trumpet while marching up and down his yard. He's probably about thirteen or fourteen and it is such fun to watch him and hear his music. I wonder if he's in the Timpview band and he's practicing for the 4th of July parade. I would include that in my kitchen journal. His final song was a very bumbling rendition of "The Spirit of God." I silently sang along.
So here's my question. What are you leaving your children? I'd really like to know.
PS The movie I watched tonight was A Family Thing with James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall. It was excellent.
5 comments:
I think leaving all these blagger thought is an excellent start. Just imagine reading things like this many years later.
You have already left us such good things. Like, our love for the fish noise, and how not playing in the water until time and temp says 80 degrees is extremely against the rules and you can NEVER EVER sing Christmas songs until after Halloween!
A kitchen journal is an excellent idea. You could also download one of those programs like "Blurb" where you can format all the posts from your blog and get them printed in a bound book. Because really, a blog is a journal of sorts. I have a regular journal, which over the past few years is typed, then cut out and includes photos of the things I talk about. It's a stupid process, I know, but I enjoy cutting and pasting the papers. It's in a sketchbook too, so I can draw stuff when I want, so I've been trying to do that more. I also keep a small nice notebook for each of my kids, and write about funny stuff they do. I write in them sometimes several times a week, other times I might skip a month or two. I think they'd like to know that I was thinking about them and things they did when they were little.
I keep tons of photo albums (the regular kind) a family scrapbook, which really just has our 8x10 family photos we take every two or three years, then scrapbooks for each kids, where I do a page for them about every six months, just to document their growth. Nothing fancy, except the pretty paper the photos are on.
I think records are a wonderful thing to leave family. I just hope they appreciate it! My husband has a whole shelf of journals he kept between his mission and when we got married, but after marriage I guess he got too busy and stopped writing. I'm kind of sad I won't have any record of his thoughts and feelings from our family life after he's gone. Not that I expect him to be going anytime soon....
You can leave me everything that your Yogurt Flavored Child thinks that she's entitled to.
Your writing is a wonderful gift you are giving to your grandchildren. (And I have you to thank for the fact that I am doing that now.) What do I hope to leave to my grandchildren? Lots of memories, and the knowledge that they are loved.
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