Reimagining Legacy: How We Want to Be Remembered
What if your legacy isn’t what you leave behind, but how you lived?
We live in a world obsessed with legacy, but often in the most material sense, what we build, what we accumulate, what we leave behind for others to consume. Legacy, in the dominant culture, is about permanence. A name on a building. A body of work. A structure that outlives us.
But when we strip away colonial ideas of success and worth, what remains? What if legacy is not about what we leave behind, but who we have become?
If we stop trying to make ourselves last forever and instead ask how we want to be remembered in the hearts and stories of those who come after us, our understanding of legacy shifts. What if we practiced, impermanence?
Ancestral Work: Becoming a Good Ancestor
When we think about legacy, we are also thinking about lineage. We are not the first to grieve, to love, to fight for a better world. We come from ancestors who dreamed of us, whether or not they knew us by name. Some of us come from people whose legacies were interrupted, by colonialism, by war, by enslavement, by displacement, by systems that sought to erase them. And yet, here we are.
To think of legacy in a liberatory way is to ask: What are we healing that our ancestors could not?
Perhaps your legacy is breaking cycles of harm in your family. Perhaps it is reclaiming traditions that were stolen. Perhaps it is living more freely than your ancestors were ever allowed to.
So often, we think of ancestors as those who came before us. But we, too, are ancestors in the making. One day, we will be someone’s past. One day, our choices will shape the world others inherit.
How do we prepare for that responsibility? How do we live now so that those who come after us inherit love instead of wounds?
Legacy as Collective Work
Legacy is often framed as an individual endeavor, but in truth, it is collective. The people we love carry us forward, just as we carry those we have lost. In grief, in remembrance, in resistance, we hold each other’s legacies.
Movements, too, have legacies. The fight for liberation is carried across generations. The work of those who came before us continues through us. We don’t always see the results of our efforts in our lifetimes, but does that make them any less important?
Some people will be remembered by their names, their books, their speeches. Others will be remembered in the way their community thrives, in the values they passed down, in the seeds they planted, both literal and metaphorical. Some of the greatest legacies are the ones you cannot trace to a single person.
This, too, is a form of liberation, moving beyond the need for personal credit and embracing legacy as something we all weave together.
What is Legacy Work in Death Doula Practice?
In death work, legacy isn’t just an abstract idea. It’s something we do. When someone is dying, legacy work helps them reflect on their life and what they want to leave behind. This might take many forms:
Storytelling: Recording stories, either written or spoken, so they can be passed down.
Letters & Messages: Writing letters to loved ones for future moments, birthdays, graduations, times of struggle.
Ethical Wills: A practice of leaving behind not material goods, but values, beliefs, and life lessons.
Art & Creations: Some people paint, write poetry, or create something physical as a form of remembrance.
Memory Projects: Scrapbooks, photo albums, or digital archives that hold personal and family history.
Rituals & Practices: Passing down spiritual or cultural rituals to ensure traditions live on.
We don’t have to wait until we are near death to do legacy work. We can start now.
How to Work Toward Your Legacy Now
If we think of legacy not as a thing we leave behind, but as a living practice, it means we can engage with it every day. Here are some ways to start:
Reflect on your impact. Ask yourself: How do people feel when they are around me? What am I passing down through my words and actions?
Tell your stories. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Record them, write them, share them.
Preserve the wisdom of your elders. Ask questions, listen deeply, document what matters.
Create something lasting. It doesn’t have to be big. A small garden, a letter, a lesson, an act of kindness, these things ripple outward.
Live your values. A legacy is not what we say we care about, but what we embody. If we want a world of more justice, love, and liberation, we have to live in a way that cultivates it.
What Will Be Remembered?
At the end of our lives, what will truly matter?
The most profound legacies are often invisible: The feeling of safety you created for someone. The healing you nurtured in yourself and others. The small acts of resistance that made space for more joy. The way you lived in alignment with your values, even when no one was watching.
Maybe it’s time we let go of the need to be remembered and instead ask: What do I want to contribute to the great web of life while I am here?
Because in the end, we are not measured by what we leave behind. We are measured by how we lived.