We quiz ourselves daily on the small stuff, yet the big questions, the ones that shape our lives, often go unaddressed. To help get you thinking this year, we’ve asked seven familiar faces to share their questions with us. Here is 800 Words star, Michelle Langstone questioning how she would like to be remembered when she’s gone.
I don’t know if it is a trick of age, or of nostalgia, but the older I get, the more I think about what my life, and the life of those around me, means in terms of a legacy.
My dad just turned 70 – an age that seemed impossible when I was a kid. In January I turned 38, and that took me by surprise. It is only in the past two years that I felt myself arrive in my skin; really land in myself as a person.
I feel myself at a tipping-over point into the next part of my life – the part where I now put down foundations and build the monuments that make sense to my life. I suppose that sudden awareness brings some clarity to the way you feel you live in the world, and therefore, the way you hope to be seen, and be remembered.
When I think of the people I have said goodbye to, I think of them in bursts of images – imprints of memory that come to life behind my eyes.
I think of the people I love in terms of colours, and feelings. I remember people for their particular way with things; I barely ever remember what they did for a job – that just never seems to register.
In 800 Words
In the same way, I hope I am remembered for these small, but necessary parts of who I am, which make me one big jumble of a human being. The way a train ride could make me nearly burst with excitement. The way a snowstorm could make me six years old again in a second. The way my eyes brightened when I heard someone mention a book I had read and loved. The absolute fixation I had in finding and patting any pet in any home, on any property, anywhere in the world I went.
I hope they remember how I went in the wild; how at home in a forest or on the water I was. I hope they remember the heartbeat I’d be there in, if something went wrong. I hope they would remember, and forgive, my impatience – the restlessness in me that just had to move, and the joy that would come when the adventure was allowed to begin.
I would like to be remembered for my laughter, and for my big heart, and for the unashamed enthusiasm I had for being alive. I hope people remember it wasn’t always easy, and that at points my life overwhelmed me, but that I hung on, and in doing that, I was reminded of how lucky I was.
I hope I am remembered for being a good aunty – a reader of stories, a maker of terrific Marmite and chip sandwiches, and really excellent at piggyback rides.
And I hope they will all remember how grateful I was to have my world filled with remarkable, loving people, who in the end held up a mirror so I could see we are all part of one another; because no memory is made in isolation – happiness is a shared experience.
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