Like so many, my life has been greatly touched by the traumatic events of our nation. Like you, I watched in horror as pictures of our fallen leaders flashed across the TV screen; people like John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom I felt I knew from reading about him in the African American magazines that used to lie around our house when I was a girl. 

As an airman I served in the Pacific a short plane ride from the fighting in Viet Nam. And I literally dodged the first Persian Gulf war by choosing an honorable discharge upon receiving a letter from ‘Uncle’ telling me to get my affairs together should I be deployed, heeding my mother’s advice to ‘always leave them wanting more.’ I’m still not sure what that meant, or even if she meant that in this context. However, I pictured her up there in Heaven, ‘saying for once that child did something that I asked.’

Even as a soldier of war, it took the Oklahoma Bombing and one fateful day in September to make real for me the atrocities that are commonplace to many of our nations. Years later I’m still reminded of it by continued press coverage, movies and more. However, on September 11 a question was voiced that continues to resonate with me: ‘If you knew that you were about to perish whom would you call’? 

For me, that answer is simple. It would be to my spouse of thirty-three years. If I had enough time, I would thank him for his unwavering support, something I often take for granted as his wife. And I would encourage him to marry again, for man cannot live by steak and remote control alone.

Alas, I have begun to ponder what kind of legacy will I leave behind. Perhaps getting older and questioning one’s mortality explains this. I pray that I will be remembered for the books and articles that I wrote that hopefully touched or empowered someone. I hope that the people that I leave behind always knew that I was there for them. May I always be remembered as someone who reached for the hand of a small child even when it was sticky. The poet, William Wordsmith once wrote that, ‘the best portion of a good man or woman’s, (I added that) life are his or her little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.’ 

While Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Indeed, the impermanence of life makes the journey much sweeter. So from the uncertainty of life that today is our reality, comes my plea. Starting right now, let us all live our lives as if there were no tomorrow. Let friends and loved ones know how much they mean to us.  Let’s all ascribe to the ties that bind us together as human beings, as a community. Let’s all use our individual and collective talents to instill hope for a new generation. Please, please, let what we do from this moment on be our legacy for living.