Reflections on a Visit to the Family Cemetery

Plus An Invitation to Create Your Family’s Legacy Place

“When we are gone, and people weep for us and grieve,

Let it be because we

Touched Their Lives

Let it not be said that life was good to us,

But rather, we were Good to Them”

—From a Funeral Program

 
We are fast approaching Memorial Day, a day when we remember our dead.  In a visit with my friend, Joe Paul, a family business consultant in Portland, Oregon, Joe reminisced about a trip he had taken recently to his family’s cemetery in Georgia.  The story Joe shared with me is a powerful one about not just the honor and respect we should pay to our ancestors but of the value we draw from the meaning of their lives.  That meaning isn’t reflected in their headstones but rather in their experiences, values and wisdom.

At an early stage in Joe’s life, his grandmother began a custom of periodically taking Joe to the family cemetery to weed.  As they would weed around the various plots and headstones Joe’s grandmother shared stories from the life of the individual whose grave they were honoring through their service.  There was something almost magical about the way those stories have stuck with Joe throughout his life, as if the formula of service and story, repeated often, coats our memories with an enduring protective power.

Joe shared with me an important moment in his life when he felt a strong desire, almost need, to return to that family cemetery to have a conversation with his deceased parents about a vexing problem.  It wasn’t a conversation of words but rather of emotions.  Memories of the stories his grandmother had shared came racing back as he walked among the headstones.   This trip to the cemetery didn’t provide immediate closure for the dilemma he faced, but it did put Joe on the reflective path which would ultimately yield the answers he sought.  

Not all of us have a family cemetery we can go to when we hit critical junctures in life.  But I would like to suggest we all can create our Family’s Legacy Place—a  virtual place we can visit where the life wisdom and experiential reflections of our ancestors is preserved.  A Legacy Place isn’t a physical destination.  Your Legacy Place and mine isn’t marked by iron gates and headstones.  Rather it is made up of Legacystones.  Legacystones come in lots of different shapes and sizes.  Legacystones are priceless heirlooms such as: 1) “My Favorite Quotes” collections; 2) wisdom treasure chests; 3) personal diaries; 4) gratitude journals; 5) pedigree charts and historical records; 6) family love letters; 7) scrapbooks; 8) video memoirs and digitally recorded life stories; 9) Purposeful Conversations; and 10) digital photo collections with written narration or tags.

A headstone is always placed on our grave by someone else. One difference between a headstone and a Legacystone is that we can create and erect our own Legacystones.  So don’t focus on just gathering and erecting Legacystones for your progenitors.  Be sure to work on your own Legacystones as well.

Through the service of creating and organizing our Family’s Legacy Place we leave behind a powerful source of strength, comfort and inspiration for those who will follow in our footsteps.  That effort can be for us, as it was for Joe, something we will carry with us throughout our lives.  For I truly believe that the creator of a legacy receives far more from the effort to build a legacy than just the hope that someone will say at our funeral that we touched their lives.

“Life lessons from our ancestors, as well as our personal story and life wisdom, are the building blocks for erecting lasting legacies for the rising generations of our family”—John A. Warnick

 

Comments

[natalia kabbe]

John A,

thank you so much for sharing this story - I loved it! It made me think of my grandmother and her captivating stories when we visited the family cemetery together.

I will be passing on your article to my clients and friends.

Best,

Natalia Kabbe

[Alan Pratt]

Well said, good and faithful servant! You are a blessing to more than you know!

Best,

Alan Pratt

[Michelle Adams]

I really enjoyed reading your post. What a great reminder for all of us to consider the impact of the legacy we wish to leave behind.

Peace and blessings,

Michelle Adams

[John "John A" Warnick]

Thank you Natalia, Alan and Michelle for your kind comments. I'm hoping the suggestion we create Family Legacy Places, however we choose to do so, will resonate with many and that it will spread virally.

John A

[Joe Paul]

John A,Thanks for telling that story. Its like watching your child walk for the first time when you see one of your stories told by others.

I had to laugh when I read your observation that it is always others who pick our tombstone. Such was not the case with my mother. My father preceded her in death and my sisters supported my suggestion that we put a Gypsy saying on our father's tombstone, "You must dig deeply to bury your father".

While my mother allowed the inscription she made sure that her children would not put such an enigmatic phrase on her tombstone. She went ahead and placed her own tombstone and had it inscribed with everything but the date of her death so that there was no room for commentary by her children.

But now it is a story I tell my children when we visit her grave. So she didn't quite get away with her attempt to dodge her children's commentary.

Eventually she did die. I was holding her hand and we were looking into one anothers eyes. I asked her if she knew what was happening and she nodded as she passed away.

[Loria Schleiff]

There are different ways to honor the memory of your parents and ancestors, and the way your family does this is very heartwarming. Based on how you described it, your family has a level of closeness that is hard to come by these days.