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Legacy Work
Life is Finite, Legacy is Forever
You have the power to share all the ways your life left a mark on the world, preserve your stories, ethical lessons, and history
Navigating Legacy
I approach legacy as a way to help you see ALL the ways you may have left a mark on the world, preserving your stories, ethical lessons, and history.
Legacy is fundamental to what it is to be human. Research shows that adults need a sense of purpose, and one way to find this is to create a gift of what is meaningful (to maintain meaning) in their lives.
Examining our legacy is relevant to all of us, not just for those who are elderly, dying, or who have an immediate family to pass them to. Thinking about what our legacy might look like, or examining personal values through an ethical will, can help us when making difficult choices in our lives.
What is legacy work?
Asking the existential questions of life:
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What was the meaning of my life?
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How did I impact my community, defined narrowly and broadly?
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What am I leaving behind?
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What values have I passed on
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What do I want to tell others about what my life was?
Let's build your legacy
Legacy projects have the power to help you transition without regret, honor all the ways (big or small) you have had a positive impact on others, and ensure stories, history, and values are not lost to history.
The possibilities are endless
•An annotated scrapbook (with pictures/keepsakes related to a particular time in their life, a loved one, a favorite vacation destination, etc.)
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•A collection of their favorite recipes
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•A blanket made from T-shirts or other fabric items
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•An oral or written life review
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•An ethical will
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a legacy project?
A legacy project is traditionally defined as something someone makes for their loved ones before they die. My definition is much broader. It can just be taking the time to ask some of the existential questions at the end of life, preserving queer history, and documenting cultural, community or local history.
What forms do a legacy project take?
Traditionally, it is a written or video life history. More recently, technology has allowed for sorts of interactive apps, including questions sent weekly and compiled into a book, a place to store messages digitally to be sent in the future, and sites that host and store life reviews and ethical wills, along with the prompts to create them.. There are a plethora of digital options. Other approaches can be to create annotated photo albums and cookbooks, collages of memorabilia and
Why should I do my legacy work with Navigating Dying?
When undertaking a legacy project with a client, I take time to listen to what they want out of this project, offering suggestions but never imposing my ideas (or that of their loved ones) on what we create to have it be a natural outgrowth of the work we are doing one (“I HAVE to create making to leave loved ones) but to have it be a natural outgrowth of the work we are doing towards the end of life.
Unlike online apps, I tailor any legacy work to the client's particular individuality, situation, and goals. If someone is on hospice, they may not have the time or ability to read and reply to prompts, nor might they be appropriate for where the person is at emotionally. Conceivably, a client might want to take the space to reflect on their life, regrets and areas of pride but don’t need to document it (or have folks they want to pass it on to). Or, in the process of being interviewed, we discuss topics they want to remain private. My primary responsibility is to the client; they get to determine the parameters of our work.
Perhaps they have lived a rich Jewish life and want to create an ethical will for their synagogue to house. My approach to that person would not be identical to my approach to someone thinking about an ethical will for the first time.
I don’t have any relatives to whom I can leave my legacy project. Why would I want to do one?
Studies show that engaging in some type of legacy work improves the mental health and quality of life of people as they approach the end of life. In addition, I work to find community resources, such as cultural or religious community archives, that would love to preserve your stories and memories.
I’m not planning to die anytime soon, so why is this something I should think about?
We often wait until we are “old,” however we define that, before going through precious items, photo albums, and other effluvia we might want to preserve. But we have all had the experience of going back and looking at photo albums (before cell phones!) and not remembering the people or places in the photo and why they were important to us or not at that time. The longer we wait, the harder it is to recreate our life and the important people in it.