How do you want to be remembered?

[URA]

I came across a nice news story from Joliet, simply reminiscing over a good life of a good man in the city. I think that's a very nice thing for a newspaper to do; after all, it's quite exhausting to only hear bad news. It's refreshing to just hear about ordinary person that let a nice life, one that's worthy of a local newspaper article.

An Extraordinary Life: Joliet man was true friend and a walking internet of knowledge | The Herald-News

This also introduces a more personal question: how do you want to be remembered? Personally, I want to be remembered as a great husband, a father that took in plenty of kids from foster care, and someone who was a spiritual guide for a lot of people who needed it. This might sound vague, but it's packed with meaning, when details from my own life are considered.

What about you? If someone would write a newspaper article on your life, what would you want it to say? This doesn't have to be a question of after you're dead; just think of how people would remember you at the last place you were.

As a side note, I started asking this to middle- and high-school aged kids at the summer camp I used to work at, integrating it as a part of their merit badge. It was remarkable how few of them have ever thought about it; they only thought about school, video games, and friends. Honestly, I wasn't much different when do was that age. Still, it was good to get them thinking in that direction, and some of them had some interesting answers, such as the guy who said he wanted to be remembered as the guy who invented the doomsday device! (Hey, this was teenage boys I was working with!) The most common response was a simple one: "I just want to be remembered!"

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I don't particularly want to be remembered. Maybe a few light quips, tinged with nostalgia, from my children and future grandkids, but that is about it. Thereafter I want to fade into obscurity, and have the world drink the sweet waters of Lethe.

Remembrance is a tricky thing. I think of Achilles in the Iliad, being promised either a long happy life ending in obscurity, or a glorious short one that men will speak of forever more. In the Odyssey, the ghost of Achilles bemoans his choice, as the praises of men are hollow against actual life.

Or another way to look at it, is that the good men do is often interred with their bones, while the evil long lives after them, as Antony said. People mull over wrongs, but often forget a good turn. How often do we remember the great dictators, Hitler is a household name, but the great saints are not even nearly as well known. I am more likely to be remembered outside my own family for some sin I committed, than for a good deed, I feel. Even then, wanting to be remembered at all, seems to shade into the sin of Vanity anyway, in my opinion.

No, I want a nice simple tombstone that eventually withers into the illegible, before disappearing in entirety, and my only continued existence in the memory of men as a name in a genealogical record. In the grand scheme of things, I am not at all sure that a nameless peasant mattered less than the king, though I may remember the latter's name.

 

[Lost4words]

As top dog in my neighbourhood!

 

[Sabertooth]

"Then he said to Jesus,

'Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.'​

And Jesus said to him,

'Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.' ” Luke 23:42-43 NKJV​

 

[tulc]

Annoying, but a lot of fun.
tulc(with kind of an odd coffee addiction)

 

[April_Rose]

As a crazy person with a deep love of the Lord and her family and friends. (Including pets)

 

[MehGuy]

Well ideally I would like to be remembered as someone with interesting thoughts and who went against the grain and openly challenged politically incorrect notions of his day. Someone who lived in the 21st century, yet was somewhat modern to whatever the future centuries may be.

Not saying I deserve to be remembered that way, just saying that would be my personal ideal, lol.

 

[sunshineforJesus]

as someone who is sweet and friendly to all.