Daily Herald opinion: Genuine legacies: What can be more important to leave behind than the gifts of our love and values?

There's a curious touchstone that comforts one of our older Editorial Board members whenever he finds himself stressing needlessly over an unavoidable upcoming challenge.

It's the echo of an odd joke told decades ago by an affable older workmate named Ed who mentored him on a summer job while he was in college. It was not even all that great a joke, just one that Ed told as the two braced themselves to deal with a difficult customer.

“I think we'll do what they do in Missouri when it rains,” Ed counseled back then.

What do they do in Missouri when it rains, Ed?

“They let it.”

Ed told that joke a half century ago. And it has been decades since he passed away. Outside of that summer job, he and our Editorial Board member did not stay connected.

Yet, the joke remains, continues to manifest itself as a kind and still-flowering reassurance.

You might say, it is Ed's legacy, or one of them. He likely never knew he had left it behind.

Look around your home, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the spare room, in the closets. What do you see? We tend to imagine that all these things that surround us sort of add up to who we are. But they do not. We tend to think about what we will leave behind, which loved one will get which loved things. But to our loved ones, most of these things will be clutter. (Heck, even to us, even if we don't quite recognize it, most of these things are clutter.) When we are gone, most of these things will not be cherished. Most of them will be thrown out or donated to a thrift store. Even most of the sentimental things.

For those of us who are packrats, by hanging onto these things, or at least so many of them, we add confusion to our lives. And once we are gone, we add work for our loved ones.

“Consider the cost of keeping something,” says Elle Penner, a minimalist blogger from Bend, Oregon. " Everything you own requires space and upkeep, all of which cost you time, energy, and money.”

Rather than leaving more than anyone could keep, more than even those who love you dearest could keep, ask your loved ones now what of yours would they like as a remembrance. That is, one or two keepsakes to remember you by. Not a roomful of them.

Beyond that, seniorcitizensinc.org, a Georgia-based grassroots support network for older adults, points out that rather than a “focus on material items — family heirlooms, financial assets, or cherished belongings … the most meaningful legacies go beyond possessions. They are rooted in the values, life lessons, and principles we pass down to future generations.”

The organization recommends that we take our obligation as family and generational historians seriously, that we pass down personal stories that convey our values in a way beyond what facts alone can do. Rather than focusing on material keepsakes, the group encourages us to leave behind a letter or journal that explains who we are and passes along our “beliefs and hopes for future generations. This doesn’t have to be formal. Heartfelt reflections on what matters most to you can be incredibly powerful.”

Our greatest legacy is not the things we leave behind, but the love and lessons we've taught and shared.

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten,” Ben Franklin said, “either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.”

In the end, the value of our lives is less in what is remembered and more in what has been contributed. To give with an open heart, after all, is to give for the sake of giving, not for the credit.

Famously, you can read these words because a teacher somewhere opened up a world of reading to you. Even though you may not remember who the teacher was.

Investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet beautifully reminds us of the same thing in another way.

“Someone is sitting in the shade today,” he observed, “because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

Yes, planted a tree. And then let it rain.