I’ve been thinking a little about “legacy” lately, since I am in my 30s and all. And my mom just turned 60 and we are having another little child who is a girl. She is a wonderful gift, but one of the things about having all girls is that your “name” doesn’t get carried on through your own family. I mean there are other little Ybarras which grow up to be big Ybarras and the name will live on, but not from my immediate family.

That is okay. The whole idea of legacy is probably a human idea anyway. It’s one of those notions that we created because we want to prolong our lives as much as possible. If you think about it, many of the things we do are meant to preserve our lives, when we were really born to die.

That’s what this guy said, anyway. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” He was not talking about physical death only. He was talking about spiritual and figurative death as well – dying to yourself and becoming part of something bigger. The only things in my life that have meant anything at all have been when I have totally forgotten my own interests and gotten involved in a larger life – lost in a choir of voices and whisked away in a breeze to become part of the Real Story.