Rethinking My After-death Legacies
While Still very much alive…
It’s 3am in the morning. It’s the first day of a new month. And it’s the first day of the 2nd half of the year.
It’s also a few hours after speaking with my mother for over two hours, a call that left me reeling with a hotchpotch of emotions, thoughts….and all those feelings that only a conversation with one’s mother can induce.
I was always an ambitious child. I am a writer so expect that I’ve also always had a fertile, overly active imagination.
I’ve imagined myself as a pop start touring the world, wearing those shimmering sequin dresses that female singers in the 80s favored, the likes of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion; with my curly bob hair, arms stretched out belting a tune, fans drooling.
I’ve imagined myself as a miracle-working preacher taking the gospel to the world, standing in arenas the size of the O2 preaching the word of God.
I’ve imagined myself as a corporate big shot, standing on podiums addressing government officials on salient issues in governance and economic development.
I’ve imagined myself as a billionaire businesswoman, one who creates a bestselling product and helps other women-owned SMEs with capital and free business planning.
I’ve imagined myself as a best-selling author, selling thousands of copies, being interviewed on several platforms, being repeatedly asked the inspiration behind one story or essay or article I wrote, and I’ve imagined myself formulating those jangbajantis responses that only resonate with the literary community.
I’ve imagined myself as a mother to the precise number of kids I want, with my gentleman hubby one side.
I’ve imagined myself in so many contexts, both the sane and the ridiculous because again, I love my company the most in the world, and so I make myself laugh a lot. (The introvert’s life.)
I’ve also imagined how I will like to be remembered. I’ve wondered what fragrance I’d like to leave behind in the world when I’m gone, and especially in the lives of those closest to me.
And after speaking with my mom last night, I decided that at the end of my sojourn in the world, it’s not those big ambitions I mentioned that I want my circle to remember me for.
I hope they remember the shoulder I provided them when they were down. I hope that having me helps them know that they’re not alone, that love is a tangible thing, a doing thing, something that acts, that stays silent when words are limp, that speaks fire to your bones when you’re tired and weary….
I hope that with me love is a friendship that is friendly, that conversations are easy, that thoughtfulness is a dominant theme, and awkwardness is a questionable concept that has no place.
I hope my own imperfections are not hidden too…but understood. For instance, how I can easily be your most religious friend or family member, how I can reel out twenty scriptures to encourage you when you’re down, but also how I can use my tongue as a war instrument at enemies online when they come for me first.
Nothing ungodly…just not the sweet Jesusy girl they know….which is interesting because Jesus himself was often brutal with His tongue when He considered people foolish.
Yes yes, it’s not for the gospel that I come hard on folks online, I get it. Sometimes it’s for other forms of foolishness, like their anti-women or tribal sentiments, or some other thing that is equally unsettling.
Does that make my fight any less divine? Perhaps. So that’s one flaw; a brash tongue online in the face of perceived foolisness.
Which is why I’ve been avoiding social media for a while now.
Particularly why I left Twitter years ago and never returned, why I’ve deleted my Facebook app, why I rarely visit Instagram and why I follow no blogs.
Because I’m trying to avoid situations where I have to contend with people’s foolishness because I can’t trust myself to not brutally call them out….which eventually ends up in me questioning how saved I truly am if I thwack people like that online.
So yea, when I’m gone, I hope my circle don’t deodorize my flaws….I hope that even while I’m here, they can see them clearly, but understand me in spite of it.
At least, unlike 99% of the population of the world, I make effort.
At least, after every thwacking, I sit down and analyse myself…. sometimes I give myself thumbs up for putting unruly people in their place, and sometimes I vent to God and try to defend myself.
Other times, I apologise to Him and promise to do better next time.
I hope those in my circle remember how I shared my space with them….even though space is my most intimate treasure.
I hope they remember me as kind and giving. On the giving part, I hope to become a better giver as I get older. There was a time in university when I’d given myself out, worn myself thin trying to be there for everyone and I realised that most humans are takers…..you establish yourself as a giver, they establish themselves as perennial takers, so because my brain works and isn’t there for decoration, I woke up one day and decided that I was done with self-denying kindness to people who haven’t earned it.
But there’s a problem with resolutions like this. We hold back good from good people because of the wrong done by selfish people. So, I became wary of people because I’d had users around me at one season of my life.
But I missed being a lavish giver. It’s not in me to hoard, and it is a privilege to be the giver. So I’m relearning to give freely…..because giving makes me feel light, makes me feel happy with the world.
There are big things I hope to do in the world, like win souls for God, heal sick bodies through the healing power of Jesus, use my money to solve the food, medical and education needs of the poor …….
….write books that shift mindsets about certain societal issues and set the tone for culture-questioning conversations.
I also hope that a generation of women because of me, my words, my writings, my own life, and what God does through me, choose to live their own lives fearlessly, without fetters; whether the religious, or the cultural fetters.
These are the big legacies I hope to live behind. But there are the smaller ones which matter to me just as much.
For instance, the way I tease those in my circle, dragging them until their sides hurt from laughing, I hope they remember this and smile.
I hope I love people enough for them to feel covered, warm.
I’m thinking about all these things because of my mother- that woman is a force in my life- and last night, I relearned her. I realised that there was more to her, to what she has left for us her children, more to what she represents than just mother.
It occurred to me yesterday that we can become a bit used to the people closest to us and the virtues that come with them, that they soon become like the old, beloved furniture in our homes, something we’ve become used to seeing that we soon forget exists.
It occurred to me last night that I knew my mother the Amazon. The woman who had achieved career success, the woman who was resourceful, who was a fierce God-lover, a church mother, who was impulsive, confrontational, courageous, inflammable, accomodating, powerfully wise, outgoing….and all that.
But it took me twenty-eight years to discern a part of her personality that had existed for a long while now. It took me so long to articulate it clearly, and acknowledge it as part of who she was.
I feel like I learned her afresh last night. And I realised that if I lost her today, it’s really not the big things she has achieved I would remember.
It’s her cackling laugh, her animated storytelling, her penchant for drama, her almost petty fascination with little details…..
I don’t know what my siblings will remember about her. But it’s these mundane things about her that I’d remember. These little things…..
So, I hope that when I go, it’s the little things my circle will remember, and by little, I mean my big acts of kindness.
