What do I want my legacy to be? I’ll take the memories of a few giggles from my grandkids…

#BlogHerWritingLab ~ Monday, April 25, 2016 ~ A line from the play Hamilton asks: “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” What do you want your legacy to be?

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I suppose I could agonize or brood or overthink this question about Legacy.

My Legacy ~ something that I have achieved and will continue well after my death, I hope, are memories of making my grandkids smile, laugh, giggle or lose themselves for awhile in a funny story. 

The thing is, I don’t appear funny. I don’t ordinarily make people laugh. I’m never the center of attention or on stage, so to speak.

I live in the background, like a ghostwriter or stand-in or extra. I am comfortable abaft the wheel.

I am often invisible, but never imponderable.

I’m underbearing, underprevalent, unassuming but never passive, timid, meek or spiritless.

I listen. I see. I assess. I develop strong opinions.

I’m fairly sure people see me as nice. A nice person. A nice teacher. A nice wife. Mom. Grandma. Daughter. Friend.

I do exceptional imitations of people, if I do so say so myself. I do imitations of people I love and even better imitations of people I don’t like very much. I study mannerisms and speech patterns. I can’t help it. I’ve done this since I have memories to remember.

I am wildly inappropriate, but inappropriate only at appropriate times.

I can make people laugh.

I have been all of the above all of my entire life.

This secret is my Legacy.

My grandchildren are my greatest recipients of my humor, my imitations, my wild inappropriateness. My husband, too. This is why he married me, I’m sure.

I can make them laugh.

These are the moments my invisibility vanishes like de-cloaking the Fountain of Virtues in Nuremberg or the Kafka Museum Entrance in Prague. This is when the entire human condition comes into play and comes out to play at its rawest.

I am always at the ready to play, to laugh, to be at the ready to whisper the most inappropriately funny things at the most appropriate times. Oh, like at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru when the order is all wrong. With a wink of an eye and a quick whispered retort at the bullsh*t someone is trying to sell. Or with a story of layers and layers and layers of stuff unlike a grandma’s stuff…

Who will tell My Story?

My grandkids, I hope. I hope they tell their children that Grandma was a funny lady. She made us laugh.

 

(Or, too, if I sell my screenplay Bitten Apples in which all of me comes out to play. Ah, ha. Oh, my!)

Because otherwise my legacy will be something like this: Sharon was a nice lady period.

BlogHer Writing Lab April 2016 Prompts! Why not join in and tell your story.