Thinking back on your life, what have you accomplished that continues to give you significant satisfaction? For the purposes of today's thought experiment, I'm requesting parents put aside - just this time - the most obvious answer, i.e., your children. What might be the next thing that comes most readily to mind?
Although the years spent teaching guitar to my youngest nephew is not the next thing that comes most readily to my mind, the sense of accomplishment I get listening to him play is up there. I suspect the fact that he's getting married this coming weekend contributed to this Act Three-ish reflection popping up recently. I mean, it's difficult imagining someone still in Act Two - that is, someone not likely to have a twenty-something youngest nephew - spending much time on a thought experiment like this. After all, while in Act Two, most of us on the bell curve are still working at the big stuff, aren't we? But when we're in Act Three - or like me, quite a bit along into Act Three and watching the youngest members of our extended families starting adult life - isn't it predictive for us to be looking back at accomplishments, at least occasionally?
So, when this reflection first began percolating weeks ago, the first thing I did was capture in my journal several things that came to mind, including that time spent teaching guitar to my nephew. Next, I did what I almost always do. I asked my ideal reader and partner of forty-eight + years to respond to today's thought experiment. Though unsurprised that her instinctive response was our daughter, I asked her to dig deeper, just as I'm asking you to do. Her "secondary" answers gratified her and reminded me of significant pieces of her legacy. I'm guessing the same could be true for some of you. I hope a few of you will share something here. To anyone who does, I pledge to respond by sharing a different accomplishment of mine, another from that same journal entry, the petri dish for this post.
It's so good to contemplate the other things we did--outside of the "big" ones. How significant they are though. I am thinking of something from over 30 years ago when I taught in an inner city school. For some crazy reason I got it in my head that a boarding school I knew, up in Rhode Island, would provide a good education for a student willing to go. With support from the the families of the students interested and a the help of a private donor, we had a way for students to go to high school. Years later, after I had left the school, one of those who went reached out to thank me. She had gone on graduate from Duke, and built a life that took her in a different direction. As had the others who went. It wasn't easy, but they all went on to college, with full scholarships.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pat for helping me bring up this memory.
Regina; You're welcome; thanks for the heartfelt comment. How gratifying that must have been to heave heard from that student many years later. From the list I captured in my journal, I have a parallel story about a former guitar student (not my nephew) who has stayed in touch and repeatedly goes out of his way to tell me all the time how my teaching made a huge impact on his development as a musician.
DeleteThat is lovely Regina! Other than children and in my case grandchildren and now a great grandchild, what first came to me as my love of dance and sharing that love with others - many years ago as a belly dancer and now as a Nia Technique teacher. However reading Regina's post, I was reminded that I went back to visit the lab I worked in as a graduate student many years later and one of the lab techs was still there. She came up to me and told me what an impact I had her on life. I was flabbergasted. I had just done what comes naturally to me - taught her what I knew. It is so rewarding to hear that I made a difference.
ReplyDeleteInes; Thanks for the comment, kind feedback to Regina, and your story about the lab tech who thanked you for your tutelage. Another item on the list I captured in that journal entry is connected to a recording project I completed some years ago with my daughter singing a bunch of my original compositions. It's not a perfect recording but it is something I'm proud of having accomplished, given how many years I postponed doing so when life continually got in the way.
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