A Legacy of Love

We said goodbye to my Aunt Mary Lou this week.

            I have been blessed with a lot of aunts and uncles. My mother comes from an average sized family. She has one brother and one sister. My father, however, comes from a family of nine siblings—five boys and four girls. He has lost three of his brothers over the past several years, but Mary Lou is the first of his sisters to leave us.

            I grew up just down the street from Mary Lou and her husband, Roy. She is older than my dad and her kids were mostly grown before I came along. I have fond memories of going to her house and playing with other cousins there. I was always fascinated by her house as a child. It is an old, rambling two story home that seemed enormous to me. In those days, going upstairs to play in my cousins’ old bedroom and dressing up in their old clothes was the epitome of fun. To an imaginative child like me, it was an escape to the land of make believe and daydreams.

My aunt and uncle attended many of my school functions. She was the secretary at the elementary school I attended, and I can’t think of those years without picturing her seated at the desk in her office. At school, of course, she was always Mrs. Renfro, never Aunt Mary Lou.

I spent less time with her as I grew older and then became an adult. The busyness of life got in the way, as it usually does. Somehow, we always think we have more time than we really do. It’s only when a loved one is ripped away from us that we realize just how fleeting time really is, and that once it’s gone, we can no longer get it back.

            My Aunt Mary Lou was a firecracker. She was a go-getter. She was always at the center of everything, organizing family gatherings and church activities with gusto. She liked to be in charge, but she also worked harder than anyone else to see that a task was done and done well.

            She worked tirelessly for her church and the community. She taught Sunday school for many years, and was the church organist for 50 years. She headed up efforts for Operation Christmas Child, meals for the needy, and many other charitable endeavors undertaken by the church and our small town. She was always busy, and she was always giving.

            This past Thursday, as I sat in the crowded church sanctuary and observed all the many, many people that had come to pay their respects to her, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the outpouring of love and support her passing had prompted. Granted, our family is quite large, but the crowd was made up of much more than just family members. Local citizens, church members, former colleagues, as well as life-long friends from near and far, had all come to say one last goodbye to this woman they loved so well.

            That’s the key word in all of this, of course. Love. My aunt wasn’t famous. She wasn’t rich or gifted with extraordinary abilities that set her apart from others. To some, her life was no doubt one of ordinary proportions; however, she had one skill that eludes many that are deemed highly successful in the eyes of the world. Aunt Mary Lou knew what it meant to love others, and what I witnessed at her service Thursday was a visible reminder of the legacy of love she leaves behind—the many, many people whose lives she brightened simply because they knew her.

            As is often the case when we lose a loved one, this has made me pause for a moment and take stock of my own life. What kind of legacy will I leave behind? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind? When I was young, my greatest wish was to be a famous author and write lots of books. Writing is still a very important part of my life, of course, but I understand now that what we accomplish isn’t nearly as important as how we treat others.  It doesn’t matter how many books I sell or how many accolades I receive. If I don’t have love in my heart, it’s all pointless. To quote one of the ministers that presided over my aunt’s service, “The only thing that matters is how well we loved.”

            Love. That’s it. That’s the sum total of what is most important in life. Did we love God? Did we love others? Did we love those that are different from us? Did we love those that are difficult to love, even when they break our hearts?

            Someday, when I leave this life behind, I hope others can say that I loved well. That I always treated others with kindness and respect. And, like my aunt, I want to leave the kind of impact on this world that doesn’t necessarily appear in the annals of history, but in the hearts of those that knew me.

            An impact that’s defined by a legacy of love.