Legacy. Hmmmmm. Seems like a big, foreign subject to some. It’s one you may not have thought about much, if at all. You may think of a legacy as something beyond you, that only others produce or leave behind as a mark of their great wealth on the world.
Not true.
Great legacies are being created in many different forms by people of all ages and walks of life. They are creating legacies whether or not they are conscious of it. I know that from having been asked to represent “unknown heirs” at intestacy proceedings.
No, that’s not a stomach condition – intestacy refers to the law of descent and distribution. It’s what happens when someone dies without a will, and includes the court proceeding to determine “intestate succession.” That is, who comes after someone who died without a will, and has legal right to their property for purposes of distributing it after death (if any after expenses are paid). Since there is no will, and no named heirs, an attorney gets appointed to represent those heirs who are not readily known. In some cases, I had to go find them; rarely an heir would turn up that nobody in the family seemed to know about. That was always exciting …
Funny thing is that when doing all that legal work in the case of a person who didn’t think they even had enough property to warrant leaving a will, I almost always found that the person had left a significant legacy. Puzzling. Not enough property to consider writing a will to designate who it would go to, and yet enough of ‘something’ to have left a legacy. In the course of investigation, I found people who had been touched or otherwise benefitted by the person who had died, in a very significant and tangible way that often had little to nothing to do with their wealth or property.
That’s what got me thinking that legacy is far more that the sum of one’s worldly property, real and personal, and deciding who to leave it for after you’re done using it – as the traditional view of estate planning would define it. Legacy is a process. It is a living thing – it is the way you reach out and touch people and how they remember you – for who you are and what you’ve done in life, moreso than for your stuff. If you have financial and other resources to contribute to that effort, all the better. That’s not even necessary, though, to define and live your legacy and decide on the contribution you’ll make to this world.
There are those who don’t know they’re creating a legacy, and clearly there are others who are designing, living and creating legacy quite consciously – so they can also enjoy the creation, see it come alive, joyfully witness the benefit it has for others – and if planned well, step away from it and see it carry on without their involvement for generations to come. That is the real key to a legacy – how it carries on.
These conscious legacy leavers likewise may or may not have a will or an estate plan, since they are separate considerations, though it helps with the ‘make it last’ part of legacy planning. One note on that: it is important to have a will and/or estate plan depending upon your situation, for numerous other good reasons I won’t go into here. Just don’t confuse that with your legacy.
So consider your legacy – because yes, you, have one, too – you are developing it now. Do you want to live it as part of who you are and the unique mark you have to make, the special contribution only you can provide, the way you will reach out to your world of people, places and things and how you will meaningfully impact them? Or do you simply want to leave it, for others to define based on their views of you after you’re gone?
If you want to approach the impact you will make consciously and with care, we want to know you!
Cheers, Dolly