Legacies Of Love...

Around a century ago a wealthy gentleman sat down to his breakfast with the morning newspaper in those days long ago when newspapers were still the only way to get news, and he was horrified to read he had died!

Curious though, he continued to read to see what was said about him, as any of us would be.  What the obituary said that shook him to his core was, "The Merchant of Death, the Dynamite King has died!"

"The Merchant of Death," he thought?!!  "How terrible!  This is how I am to be remembered?!!"

The man made the decision this was absolutely NOT going to be the way he would be remembered.  So after he contacted the newspaper to first let them know he was still very much alive, he made changes that have affected peace ever since.

For you see, Alfred Nobel has been remembered for creating The Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to a very deserving person or persons each year in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace. 

This...became his legacy.  This...is what Mr. Nobel is remembered for.

We do not have to be wealthy or prematurely mistaken to have kicked the bucket to affect how we are remembered.  But we can affect how we live each day.

If you have read this blog very long you will know one of the many "Adelaide-isms," is how the love we live in life becomes what we are remembered for.  It's how family, friends, those we interact with remember us most.

When my beloved Grandfather died suddenly, he was cutting the grass for his neighbor.  At the Funeral Home person after person came for hours with stories of his kindness and generosity.  He lived in a very small town his whole life, raised a family, and had a granddaughter who loved him dearly who he was seeking custody of at the time of his death.  It's his love I still hold dearly.

Dr. Kopits, beloved Orthopaedic Surgeon of Little People I have written about here, died of a brain tumor.

Though techniques he developed in surgically helping

Little People to have fuller lives still is making impacts in the medical field, it is his kindness and devotion to all who were blessed to know him that Dr. Kopits is still remembered for most.   

In the same way Alfred Nobel redefined the way he wanted to be remembered, we too can ask ourselves how we want to be remembered.  Will it be with the ripple effects of the kindness and love we are living?