Grandmother's Rocker

Just a few days ago, my good friend passed from this life. The memorial service was a celebration of her life, the love she shared with her family and friends, and her many accomplishments, both personal and professional. Her beautiful life inspires me to be a better person.

Thinking of her causes me to consider my own mortality and ask myself some hard questions. What have I done to make this world a better place? Who, if anyone, have I touched in a positive and loving way? And, what people will say about me after my death and my soul has gone to Heaven?

Introspection is not uncommon after losing someone we love. Of course, we all want our lives to count for something. Who, in their right mind, would want to live an anonymous life and then no one notice or care when they die?

All this can be wrapped up and tied with a pretty bow as one question – What will be my legacy? In contemplating the value of a legacy, my mind wanders to my maternal grandmother, Maggie Skinner. She was the most loving, kindest, most generous, non-judgmental, and happy person that I’ve ever known. If I were to list all the qualities that made her a beautiful woman, it would be a very long list.

Her legacy to her family was first and foremost, her faith. She read her old and tattered Bible everyday. She regularly attended the Methodist Church where she had many friends and she literally lived out the Golden Rule.

She left us lots of wonderful memories, many old photographs, a few treasured letters, and an old rocking chair that, from my earliest memory, creaks and squeaks when rocked. I vaguely remembered the origin of the rocker, so I asked my mother to remind me again of its history.

In 1955, Mother and Daddy gave the rocker to her parents, Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Roy Skinner, as a Christmas gift. Mother says that they were both so proud of their new rocking chair and would fuss over who got to sit in it. It has been reupholstered at least three times over the years and has been moved around and all over Pottawatomie and Oklahoma counties.

Over the past 60 years, I can name the babies that were gently rocked to sleep in that rocker – beginning with me. After me was my sister Jayme, my brother Patrick, both of my daughters, Cathryn and Stacy, my grandson Mason, my niece Maggie, and many other babies who visited my grandmother’s home and my home.

Grandma Maggie’s old rocking chair is a treasured legacy and now sits in my home. It doesn’t really fit in anywhere. It isn’t worth a lot of money. It isn’t fashionable, the wood is scratched, it’s noisy, and the fabric is outdated. But the memories that it holds are irreplaceable.

A legacy is a gift of property – as is the old rocking chair. A legacy is also anything that is handed down from the past, from an ancestor or predecessor. My grandmother gave us the gifts of faith, dedication to family, and a strong, unconditional love for others.

So, back to one of my original questions, “What do I want my legacy to be?”. I believe I have answered my own question. First, my legacy is my faith which is the most important thing in my life. Then, I pass along my deep love for family and friends. Last, but not least, I bequeath Grandma Maggie’s creaky, old rocking chair to the future babies in our family. May they be gently rocked to sleep in the loving arms of their mothers and daddies.