Gavin has taken a fascination to dandelion fluff. Blowing the whispery white parachutes and watching them float away on the wind. Every one if those parachutes is a seed – a chance at new life. A hope for another tomorrow.
In the end, that’s all that most of us want. A legacy. The knowledge, or at least reassurance, that what we have done in life will continue once we are gone. That our mark is not as impermanent as our being.
But even legacies are deceiving. Even the greatest of stone monuments are eroded by the hands of mother nature, the sands of time. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the greatest legacy. Forever is but an illusion, relative to the length of one’s life. How do you know something exists after you exist no longer?
Which is why all we really have is the here and now. Today. Our once chance to make our mark on the world. Our one chance to get it right. I learned that the hard way. Tomorrow is not a given. Nothing - not even our legacy - is a guarantee.
Gavin is our parachute. Kurt's and mine. Our seed. With Kurt’s early departure, he has entrusted me with the most important of things – his legacy. He wasn’t given a chance to see his legacy grow old. He wasn’t even given a chance to see his legacy take his first steps, or say his first word. Which is why I am putting everything I have into that little man – perhaps at the detriment of my own needs. I owe it to Gavin – and to myself. But most of all, I owe it to Kurt to give our son the best chance at whatever the future may hold. The best opportunity, if the fates are willing, to branch off and create his own legacy.
Dandelion seeds float off and create new dandelions. Which produce their own seeds. And so on and so forth.
We hand our legacy off to the next generation. Its how we live even after we are gone. Even in death, it is the continuation of life....
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