Occasionally, in our lives, there are markers that arrive with enough strength to hop us off the treadmill just long enough to remind ourselves that everyone’s race has a finish line, and none of us are getting out of this jolly for free.
One of these blots is often when someone we know passes away.
I always find the saddest part of a funeral the idea that the deceased will never hear the nice words being shared around the room in that moment. Our online world has enhanced this grieving process with posthumous accolades flowing from friends and strangers alike, creating yet more space for others to add comment as well. These modern outpourings help shape a fuller picture of the person we’ve just lost and what that person meant to others.
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The recent death of the New Zealand acting legend Sam Neill is one such marker for so many of us. It was in the outpouring of words for Sir Sam after his death that we got a better glimpse of the person behind the actor, and a wonderful mosaic of a life properly lived.
We heard from the range of people he positively affected, via the causes he championed loudly and, in many cases, quietly and personally. The people, the wildlife, the nature and the campaigns he spoke up for were all put into kind words by others about Sam. It was such a wonderful lesson in human legacy.
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In New Zealand’s Māori culture, there is a saying that “the kumara (sweet potato) never speaks of its own sweetness”, an adage Sam lived by. Those who read and listened to the many tributes for him all got to collectively enjoy this hidden sweetness, learning how he had selflessly affected those in his orbit and beyond. That’s not a legacy of ego, but a legacy of presence and genuine human decency.
Some men (and it’s nearly always men) spend their life striving for a tainted version of legacy. It presents in the extremes of authoritarianism, with insatiable desires to have names on buildings, excessive money in banks or statues in streets. Men, who may be trying to soothe the gnawing hole left by the lack of attention from their own dads, who were perhaps absent as they too chased straw deity legacies of their own.
Spending your life trying to create a plinth for remembrance in death is an odd concept to all but those who think we get to somehow watch this soapbox existence from afar.
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It’s not like Julius Caesar’s life improved because he was remembered by name long after his death. Perhaps if he’d been a bit more present with Brutus at the time, he might have got to enjoy more of it.
It’s certain most of us will never have a month named after us like Caesar, but – as Sam has demonstrated – it’s possible to have a richer legacy simply by contributing in meaningful ways to those around us.
In facing the diagnosis of his illness, Sam said, “I’m not in any way frightened of dying … but I would be annoyed. I’d be annoyed because there are things I still want to do.”
Sam’s life ended too soon for him, and for us, but the beautiful thing about a legacy of positive activity like this is that the spread and reach of its flow will keep moving through all those who benefited. It would be impossible for the world not to be a better place if we could all find a way to live a bit more like Sam.
