The Good Ancestor
Happy New Year Village! We are still here on bell hook’s green earth, scratchin’ and survivin’.
I loved discussing being a good ancestor and preparing for your family with my brother-in-law. Don’t get me wrong, I do not like talking about death and dying, preparation but dying is guaranteed and talking about it is helpful. Dave is very easy to talk to and he is knowledgable about the topic of life insurance. You would not think that anyone is passionate about life insurance but Dave is and that is helpful.
One thing about this conversation that stuck out to me was the idea of leaving a legacy and how that has shown up in my life. I don’t think of it as what has been left financially or through materials, I think of it as lessons learned. Dave explained what was passed on through his parents and I thought about the knowledge that was left to me by my maternal great grandparents and my grandparents. Both sets of grandparents were hard workers, they took lessons from their upbringing to implement into their adult lives. What I saw was in order for you to make a way in this world, you needed to work hard. There wasn’t room to explore desire and passion, you just worked. You worked because you had a family to care for and because you wanted safety and security. I saw very early on the value of hard work and that “things” were not given to you. My great grandfather, Nezer, would always let me know how smart I was. He thought it was “sweet” that my head was always in a book or that I was writing something on a notepad. He did not have the opportunity to finish high school; he wanted to but at that time, he said, “you had to get up and go to work”. My grandfather, James, was a hard worker and he believed that family is the priority. He took care of not only his five children, but his grandchildren as well. My grandfather had aspirations of attending a university but he started a family and there was not any time for school. He wanted us to go to college to get a degree because “no one will be able to take that away". My grandmother, Juliette, did not finish high school; she married young, started having children and would often speak to us about finishing school and enjoying your youth. She would often say, “marriage and babies can wait. Get your education”. The moral of my grandparents was to get your education by any means necessary.
My great grandmother, Lois died when I was 6 years old. I remember her being a firecracker. Chile, a firecracker. One time an awards show was on TV (my family loved an awards show or tribute show with singing) and I was up dancing, really shaking it. One of my aunts was annoyed with all my twisting and turning and told me to sit down. My great grandmother looked over at her and said, “Do you need your eyes to hear?” Bloop.
Now, I didn’t have a lot of time to get to know her. Like I said, I was 6 years old when she died and she was sick with cancer for those 6 years. After she died, I would hear stories about her, which included her ways of ensuring financial comfortability for the generations after her. How did she do that? She bought properties. She knew that buying properties would set her daughter, my grandmother, up and her only grandchildren and great children. Lesson received, Grandma Wills. The fact that her great grandchildren, even the ones she didn’t have the opportunity to meet, are thinking about buying properties and buying properties; becoming more educated about money is her speaking and working through us. I believe that whole-heartedly. Thank you grandma and I am still twisting and turning. :)
What is legacy to you? How are you preparing to be a good ancestor?
xoxo, Chioko