This is another one of those prompts – what legacy do you want to leave behind – that immediately triggers a response of ‘who, me?’ in my mind when I read it. I have literally moved on past this title for that very reason. But because of that reason, I am going to answer it.
I guess one legacy I will leave behind is my son. Though it’s difficult to call him that because while he will be a product of his upbringing, it really does take a village to raise a child. So, I cannot claim sole credit for the person he is. He is very much like me in many respects, he is equally very much unlike me. He doesn’t like English as a lesson, for example, even English Literature which is the complete opposite to me. It was very firmly one of my favourite classes at school, and one I excelled in. He is very much his own person, and for that I do take some credit. I have encouraged him to be, I have encouraged him to think for himself, and I am always so very impressed and proud at how he stands his ground amongst his peers and those in some form of authority. And I have done this in the face of others who have disapproved, and still do. But I did not want my son to be an automaton, to follow the herd. I wanted him to be able to think for himself, and as he’s grown he has shown every tendency of being an innovative and creative thinker, something our education system likes to strip out of children. But he has held on, in the face of determined resistance by school, and remained someone who definitely thinks outside the box. I will always encourage that in him, and I hope he keeps it into adulthood. It will make him a force to be reckoned with, and I will take some small credit for that. For encouraging that thought process.
I also hope that my son goes on and has children, and his children have children, and so on and so forth. Because if motherhood has taught me anything, there are elements of your ancestry you cannot escape. My son looks very much like me physically as well. He has my grandmother’s eyes, with a fleck of hazel in one eye just like my great-grandmother. He has mine and my husband’s dark hair. There are physical characteristics that he cannot escape that I hope are passed down the generations as they have already been. And I hope he passes on that desire to think freely. To make a difference, to think outside that box. Because that will be a legacy for me as well.
I have already left something of a legacy in the work I did in my previous career. I bid for funding for projects, and oversaw the delivery of them, that remain in existence to this day, and will for long after I am gone I hope. Structures that I am immensely proud of. One is a library, another is a completely revamped seafront, there have been cultural buildings, innovation centres, business and science parks, and beautiful public realm spaces as well as the odd road and car park. All were created in order to bring jobs and economic impact to areas that were suffering from deprivation, and I will always have a sense of pride that I told the story well enough that the money was secured and the projects delivered, with little to no public resistance. Which is no mean feat in and of itself. The fact that they have made a difference to people’s lives, that they did create jobs and had a beneficial economic impact is something I will always be proud of.
It is in my writing, though, that I hope to leave my greatest legacy. A body of work that I hope will stand the test of time along with the buildings I had a role in seeing built and brought to life. I have self-published two books, and I write these blogs. Which means somewhere in the ether, even if I never write another word after this, I have left something of a legacy. Admittedly, an unfinished legacy if I don’t publish the third book in my trilogy, but a legacy nonetheless! I have also recorded some videos and recordings on TikTok and YouTube, which also leave something of a legacy. A record of my thoughts and beliefs are out there in the world. That feels like a legacy to me, though it is one I am looking to continuously expand upon.
I don’t feel that I have finished in my work, and I am conscious that I do want to leave a legacy. So, I still have the opportunity to make sure it is something positive. Something I can be proud of. I want people to feel seen in my work, to feel as though someone is saying something that they can understand, that they can relate to. Specifically women in this. In the Book of Sarah trilogy, I am writing about spirituality but I am also writing about how the voices of women have been erased and suppressed over the millennia. And how women can now start to assert their leadership, set the example of the divine feminine (which is not exclusively female) in how the world can move forward peacefully. I am writing about how utterly nonsensical, when you really boil it all down, any form of bigotry is. On what basis do we dislike people because of their race, creed, colour, age? When you really drill down into the question…why just keeps on being repeated in my head. Why does one person think they are ‘better’ than another because one is a man and the other a woman? Or one is white and the other isn’t? Or one is heterosexual and the other isn’t? It makes absolutely no logical sense.
I also hope to leave a legacy through my writing of the understanding that we are all one. Whether we be animal, mineral or whatever, we are all part of one giant hole from the expanse of the universe to the tiny amoeba. We are all connected. And in that way, in spreading that message of connectivity along with the others who are also doing so, I can be a part of a movement that spreads love and peace rather than hate and division. That knows that it is only in coming together as that one can we hope to save the space humanity takes up on this rock. That when the doomsayers talk about being a minute to midnight for climate change, what they are talking about is the impact it will have on humans primarily (because I hope the rest of the animal kingdom makes it). That the earth will remain, it is just us that will disappear in a probably very unpleasant way. That we can still reverse this, but to do so we have to overcome the petty differences, and in the greater scheme of things they are petty, and let go of our egos. Embrace our soul which is the link to the collective.
That is what my trilogy is, in essence, about. Dressed up around a romantic thriller to make it slightly more entertaining! The basis that we can make a change at every level if only we lived consciously rather than treating life as something we accidentally bumped into, as something that happens to us. That we are all individually powerful, so as a collective we are mighty. Not just the so-called elite, but all of us. That is the legacy I hope I leave. Playing a role, no matter how small, in making the world wake up and realise how wonderful it is, how wonderful we are, and how connected to the whole we are. And that we can make a difference, that it is our duty to make that difference.
I say one I hope to leave…what I mean to say is, it is one I will leave.
Louisa Simpson 