In Roddy Doyle’s Charlie Savage, the protagonist frets over what sort of legacy to leave his grandchildren. In particular, what skills or wisdom can he offer to make their lives more meaningful, more rewarding?
The light bulb flares. Of course – he’ll teach them how to abuse soccer refs on television. Soon we see grandfather with little ones, all shouting “Gobshite!” at the screen, while exchanging smiles of affection and accomplishment.
So, what would I like to pass on to my grandchildren – material gifts excluded? I want them to be happy, of course; protected and well partnered, yet free and self-reliant. The usual impossible balance.
I want to leave some memories with them. It’s a selfish wish; a hope that it’ll provide me with an illusory immortality.
Standard wisdom is that we die three times: first when our bodies stop; second with the death of the last person who knew us; third with the disappearance of our name from any record. I’d like to pass on something that’ll keep me remembered till the end of that second stage, with any luck.
At the same time, I want my grandkids, and just possibly the stratum following them, to feel free of any obligation to me, to know Cecil Day-Lewis was right: “Selfhood begins with a walking away/And love is proved in the letting go.” But not too soon, right?
I’d like to pass on the awareness that grandparents and parents are there to be blamed sometimes (Philip Larkin: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad,/They may not mean to, but they do”). And the other awareness that getting old can be okay, can bring moments of joy that make your breath catch, and can be funny quite a lot of the time.
What else? I want them to feel fulfilled in their work, without feeling driven. To be at ease in what I hope will become a multicultural, bilingual republic.
I hope they’ll be curious, not judgmental, that they’ll stay open to wonder. Along with this, I hope they’ll be readers – for their mental health, self-understanding, emotional resources and powers of communication.
I want to encourage them to think. I mean real thinking, separating mis/disinformation, developing what critic Northrop Frye called “an acquired skill founded on practice and habit”, not the usual “slop and gurgle of our mental sewers”.
I’d like to pass on to them that it’s great to be a listener. To look after your teeth; use social media but not let it use you; believe you can find bliss without having to ingest substances. To understand that you don’t have to love or even like your oldies all the time; that, as I suggested earlier, you can use them as catalysts to do things differently.
(And yes, all right, I suppose I’d better suggest to them that you don’t have to keep quoting other authors all the time.)
Will I try to do all this via a legacy letter or an ethical will or similar? Don’t think so. Such documents quickly become preachy, and if you’ve ever tried lecturing the young, you’ll know they have a commendable ability to sleep through sermons.
I’ll maybe attempt it via example, swollen and pretentious though that sounds. And via dialogue where I hope to make it clear that I value their opinions; that being with them warms and reinforces me.
In the end, I’ll fall back on someone else’s words yet again. What I want above all to leave for my grandkids is an affirmation of Philip Larkin’s other majestic line: “What will survive of us is love.”
David Hill is a New Zealand reviewer, fiction writer, playwright and children’s writer.
