ONE WAY TO BE REMEMBERED

At a memorial service for a friend in a park down by the sea as we remembered her I wondered…how will people remember me? I imagine most of the people at the memorial…from her friends to her family members were thinking a similar thought…how do I want to be remembered? This is a simple question…but its ripples extend quite far… because how we choose to answer…determines who we are. The following night our daughter texted us…asking if we’d like to meet her and a group of her friends…at a pub just down the street. So off we went to join our daughter and her friends in a great old neighborhood bar where we drank, we laughed, we sang songs like Piano Man accompanied by Shamus on his guitar. And as I sat next to Deborah watching Ali and her friends so loving and carefree I realized in that pub…how I’d like people to remember me. When I look back on my life…from child to parenthood I don’t need to be remembered for being great… but I’d like to be remembered for being good. For being a good person…the best good person that I can… A good husband, teacher, father, grandfather, a good friend…a good man. I think I would be happy…when I reach my final day… If everyone who remembers me…remembers me this way. Yes, I thought of a good way I’d like to be remembered…in the Irish Pub that night That people will think of me whenever they’re in the mood for a melody… and remember…how I always left them feeling alright.