Whether or not you wish it, your life will leave its legacy.

   As I watch friends retire I know that the vast majority will leave a great legacy. Especially the caregivers.

   A given nurse, therapist or housekeeper touches many lives a day. Not just their patient but families, fellow caregivers, visitors and the family they return to after work. 

   We cannot control what anyone says about us; at work, or anywhere else. There are even debates about how much of our behavior we "control."

   What Marc Antony says in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is true of all, especially the famous. “The evil that men [sic] do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” 

   On CBS Sunday Morning, Paul Simon was asked about his legacy. "I don't care," he answered. Perhaps, he understood he could not control it. But the correspondent followed up: "What about your music?"

   "The music has its own life," Simon continued. "If it lives on, it was meant to. If not, well, it's out of my control."

   Whether our legacies last years or seconds we want, like Simon, to be able to say that our "music", our presence in this world, enriched the lives of others. That is why career caregivers are so far ahead of the rest of us.

-Erie Chapman

Photo by By Matthew Straubmuller (imatty35) Wikipedia