By: Mr. Katz
“Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.”- Alan W. Watts. Some of you who read our articles monthly know that Adam seldom has an original idea this one is no exception. In December of last year we received a letter from our attorney. It detailed how to pass on an age-old tradition of ethical wills. For the past three months we have discussed the values, memories, virtues, and standards our parents and grandparents have instilled in each of us. The idea behind this was to have our readers discuss these very things with their families. To pass these ideas on to our children and their children, creating a legacy that will last past the grandfather clock or fine china place settings.
You do not need be a journalist or Pulitzer Prize winning writer to compose a memory will. The words, feelings and thoughts that come from the heart grow in another’s heart. Take time to make notes of what you value most, it can be the value of hard work from your father, the compassion your mother showed strangers, the way your grandfather raised high the American flag not only on the Fourth of July, but everyday. Once you have the ideas of what you want to write about you have your outline for your will.
Take time to write about the details of each memory. Make it philosophical, funny, or touching. Talk about the baseball on the mantle that hit grandma in the head at baseball game or how your grandfather laid the cornerstone to building on Main Street. Paint the picture with words of your parents, who you thought you would never become. Let your loved ones inherit the richness of your family history. It is not the value of the objects we leave, but the memories we share that make us great. 1Peter 1:14 reads, “And to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, “this is the gift you leave your family.