The Things We Leave Behind

Something about my 70th trip around the sun has me reminiscing about the years gone by and some of the important—or perhaps more accurately, unforgettable—events I’ve witnessed along the way. Here are a few that stand out in my memory.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. I was seven years old, in the second grade, sitting in school when it happened. The memory that has stayed with me all these years is watching my teacher wipe tears from her eyes. I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but I knew it was something terrible.

Jump ahead five years to 1968, when riots broke out in Louisville, Kentucky, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I was twelve years old, and those were some pretty frightening things to witness and experience as a boy.

The next major event that comes to mind takes me to January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch. I was 30 years old and on my way to a job interview in Kentucky. Like so many people, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.

Then there’s September 11, 2001—9/11—which was probably the most traumatic event of my lifetime to that point. I was 45 years old, sitting in my garage, when I received a call from my brother in Kentucky. I had moved to Pennsylvania in 1988. He simply told me to turn on the news.

Such a terrible tragedy.

Most of the other “happenings” I’ve experienced over these 70 years—aside from the births of my children, of course—pale in comparison to those I’ve mentioned above.

And yet, as I think more and more about my time here on this little Blue Dot eventually coming to an end, I find myself wondering about something else.

Will any of the “events” I’ve created along the way be remembered by those I leave behind?

Will my YouTube channel mean anything to someone someday? Will any of my photographs still be looked at? Will the many home recordings of music I’ve made with my boys bring back a memory or a smile?

I hope so.

Because maybe that’s what a life ultimately becomes—not just the big historical moments we happened to witness, but the little pieces of ourselves we leave behind.

I hope some of mine remain.