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What Are You Passing Down to Your Descendants?
This Thanksgiving, I had many things for which I am thankful. I have a beautiful home, a loving husband, an adorable two-year-old child, a very close family, and three affectionate kitties. I make a good living and don't have to worry where I'll get the next meal.My parents are two of the most wonderful people anyone could have the good fortune to know. I often remember some of the good examples they set for me and hope that I'll set the same example for my little one as she grows and matures.
When I was a young teenager, I waited in the van while my dad went into a bank. When he came back out to the van and counted his money, he realized that the bank teller had given him $100 too much. He explained to me that he had to go back to the teller and correct the error. It would be wrong to keep the $100, he said, and the bank may have taken it out of the teller's pay. I'm sure that at that time, Dad could have used an extra $100, although nowadays, he doesn't sweat losing that much in a slot machine. This was nearly 25 years ago, and I often think of this act of honesty and try to act as such myself.
I was also a young teenager one day when my mom stopped the station wagon to get gas on a bitterly cold day, back when a station attendant pumped the gas, before anyone had heard of "self-serve." The temperature was probably in the single digits, lower still with the wind chill. Light flakes of snow bounced in the brisk wind that cut right through a person. The guy who pumped our gas had no gloves. My mom dug around in the car and found a pair of my dad's gloves to give to the station attendant. It was the Christmas season, and this station was near the larger and newer of two malls in town, so I'm sure it did a brisk business despite the blustery weather. I wonder how many other people got gas at this station and didn't worry about the man getting frostbite on his hands like my mom did.
I know exactly where she got the motherly worry. I was also fortunate enough to know my grandma until she died when I was 16. Besides passing down the tendency to worry and empathize with others, she also had a saying that my mom is fond of quoting - "It's an ill wind that blows no good." What she meant was that things turn out for the best, even when something bad happens. Random House actually has a write-up on this saying, which I've never heard outside of my family. They have a somewhat different take on its meaning, but what it means to me is that my grandma was a wise woman indeed.
What have your parents and grandparents passed down to you? And what are you passing down to your children? Every time you tailgate someone on the highway or angrily shout at other drivers, do you think about what kind example you set for your children? Do you steal office supplies from work or call in sick when you're really planning to go shopping and just feel entitled to a day off? Have you returned an item to the store even though you know it was your fault it broke? More than anything else, this is what you're passing down through the generations.
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