Your Parents' Legacy: A Beginner's Guide

What your parents leave behind

The word legacy is frequently used to describe the property that people leave their heirs when they die. But every human being also leaves behind a nonmaterial legacy -- one that's harder to define but often far more important. This legacy comprises a lifetime of relationships, accomplishments, truths, and values, and it lives on in those whose lives they've touched.

Recent research has established that, as people age, they continue to face important developmental milestones. Aging, it turns out, provides opportunities for learning and emotional growth that can be deep and sustaining. Creating a meaningful legacy is a key part of this developmental process.

In his book How to Say It to Seniors, geriatric expert David Solie defines a personal legacy as "the unique footprint we want to leave for our time on earth." Physician and gerontologist Gene Cohen describes the same phenomenon in a different way . Older people, he says in his book The Mature Mind , are driven by an urgent desire "to find larger meaning in the story of their lives through a process of review, summarizing, and giving back."

As an adult child, there's much you can do to support your parents as they sort through the past and assess the contributions they've made and the memories they'll leave behind. This process can be deeply healing and gratifying for both you and your parents.

Recognizing your parents' legacy will help you understand them better and appreciate them more -- and you may learn something about yourself in the process. For your parents, it provides the opportunity to celebrate a life well lived.

As David Solie says, "Aging in this culture is seen as a disease and a failure. Older people internalize that message and feel like failures. Our message to them should be that they are not failures. They have a lot to be proud of, and they are loved and appreciated. They can die as they have lived -- with integrity and meaning. That is what the legacy-building process is all about."

Helping your parents recognize their legacy

Most elderly people are driven to take on the search for their legacy, whether they're conscious of it or not. If you pay attention, you'll detect signs that your aging parents are looking back into the past and reviewing their life choices. They're likely to talk about the watershed events that helped determine their life's path as well as the people who influenced them. They may wish to contact old friends, visit the street where they grew up, or take a trip to a place that holds special meaning.

If you want to support your parents through this process, the most important thing you can do is show up and pay attention. Rather than tuning out or changing the subject, try to really listen to what your parents have to say. It may be difficult to listen to well-worn memories and anecdotes, particularly if you've heard them before. But the stories your parents tell over and over often hold a key to the legacy issues they're working through.

You'll find your parents' reminisces more interesting if you take an active role. Ask probing questions to help your parents view their experiences from different perspectives. Think of creative ways to stimulate your parents' memories and reflections.

For example, if your father mentions a buddy he flew with as a bomber pilot during the war, ask him about this friend. Find out if they ever spoke again after the war was over and when he last heard from him. Do a little research. If the friend is still alive, you could help your father write a letter or plan a visit, if possible.

Encourage your father to talk about other wartime buddies, day-to-day life in the military, where he went, and what he saw. Ask to see photos, if he has them, or look at a map together so your father can show you where he was stationed and the routes he flew.

Other Legacy Tips

• Let your parents take the lead when exploring legacy issues. For example, your father may have mentioned his friend as a way to explore the subject of the war itself and unresolved feelings he may have about his war experience. If you miss the signals and focus exclusively on his relationship with his buddy, you may miss the opportunity to learn more about experiences that hold particular meaning for him. Listen carefully for the underlying themes your parent is exploring, and ask questions to draw him out.

• Be open to painful subjects and memories if they come up. It's natural to wish to spare your parents' feelings -- and your own -- particularly if a topic is one that has been taboo in your family for as long as you can remember. But your grandfather's drinking problem, your father's nightmarish childhood, or your mother's infidelity are all a part of your family's history -- and your parents' legacy. Dealing with these subjects isn't easy, but if your discussions are conducted in an atmosphere of love and honesty, these family secrets will lose their terrifying power -- and your conversations will bring you and your parents closer.

• Avoid control issues. Your mother is frail but refuses to move out of her house. Your father won't take the medication his physician prescribes. These types of control issues are common between adult children and their aging parents. Because of the many losses they face each day, elderly people tend to become rigid and resistant to change. It's important to avoid power struggles when you can because they can strain your relationship and undermine your ability to help your parents in their crucial legacy work.

If your parents are not impaired, it's best to tell them your opinion, give them your best advice, and then drop the issue -- unless it's a critical health matter, in which case you may want to get their doctors to weigh in.

• Accept your own role. Most parents consider raising their children to be among their greatest accomplishments, so as an adult child, you are your parents' legacy. Your relationship with them, then, is very important and it's worth working on if there are problems or misunderstandings that have never been resolved. Just spending time with you is important, too, and something they likely cherish. Grandchildren are also part of your parents' legacy, of course, so these relationships should be nurtured as well.

• Address the negative legacy. What if you have a difficult or practically nonexistent relationship with one or both of your parents? Depending on your history together, you may want to contact them before it's too late, to see whether any kind of reconciliation is possible. In some cases, resolving your differences isn't possible or even desirable and there's no point in forcing it, but people do tend to mellow with age, and you may find that your parents are anxious to reconnect and move beyond your differences while there's still time.

Remember that building a legacy isn't a discrete task with a beginning and an end. It takes a lifetime to construct a legacy, and your parents will continue to work on theirs as long as they live. In the meantime, making the most of your time together will add to the rich tapestry of your parents' lives -- and to your memories of them after they're gone.

As David Solie says, "Helping your parents build their legacy may be heartbreaking and difficult at times, and you're sure to hear things you don't want to hear. But you'll hear wonderful, inspiring, amazing things, too. This is your parents' final debriefing, the end of their story, and you don't want to miss it."