On Legacies

My father died a few years ago, and he left me a small inheritance – not life-changing money, but enough to pay a bill or two.

I remember holding the check from his estate in my hands and thinking, “I wish I’d never received this. I wish he’d taken me to the movies instead.”

When I was a child, I was enthralled by books and movies—stories of any kind. I could walk to the library and check out books, but I couldn’t get to the movie theater on my own. Someone had to take me.

My father used to talk about how, when he was a kid, he went to the movies every Saturday morning. I remember the longing I had when I heard him talk about Buck Rogers and John Wayne. I wished with all my heart that he would still go to the movies every Saturday morning—and bring me with him.

But money was always tight so we never went.

Here’s the thing: it wasn’t really the movies I wanted. But he was a person so focused on the long-term—would he have enough for retirement, what would happen if he got sick before retirement age, what if he lost his job before he became eligible for a full pension—that he never gave the present moment much thought.

This is probably why I am one of the most present-oriented people you will ever meet. I don’t think much about the future and I rarely remember the past.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about that moment when I received the check. I don’t want my daughter to ever think, “I wish my mother had taken me to the movies.”