How Writing Leaves Your Legacy

As a writer, it must come as no surprise that I would tout my craft. However, today I wish to focus on why writing is a very important, and unfortunately, largely lost treasure.

The other evening, the family and I were sitting down to watch one of our favorite shows- A Football Life. Each episode showcases a NFL player, coach, or team owner’s life in detail.

The episode we watched the other night was about Dan Marino, one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game. And while he never attained that coveted Lombardi Trophy, his career shows that he deserves the title of GOAT.

In a series of interviews with men and women from Dan’s life, his story unfolded. Coaches, players he played with, quarterbacks who revere him (Peyton Manning, Joe Namath, Jason Garrett, Troy Aiken to name a few), and members of his family all told stories about how Marino handled the stresses, joys, hardships, and disappointments of his professional career. Dan himself was also interviewed. He spoke a lot about his father and the influence he had on him from his childhood throughout his entire career. Unfortunately, at the time of filming, Dan’s father had died and been gone for nine years. While he spoke you could tell that he still feels that loss keenly- as do we all who have been through such a bereavement.

It was when Marino was talking about the loss of his father that he produced a brimming file folder. In it were all the letters his father had written to him when he was college. Back when Dan Marino was in college in the late 70s, technology was not what it is today. Not even on a rudimentary level. In order for people to stay in touch, they had to resort to letter writing.

There’s something intimate about a handwritten letter. The indent of the pen on the paper. The unique scrawl of handwriting. And while that might seem like a romanticization, you have to admit, when you miss someone, like Dan misses his dad, being able to see his handwriting, and know that he sat down and took that time out of his life to give those words to you, somehow they feel closer. That’s a priceless feeling.

As Dan Marino read excerpts from those letters, you could see the impact his father’s words still had on him decades later. While having the ability to pick up the phone and talk with our loved ones is something I would never wish to be rid of, something has been lost due to this ease of technology.

Writing a letter forces several things. It requires the writer to sit down and give time to the task. In a society where the idea of slowing down is almost scoffed at, setting aside time to be still and write a letter may seem foreign, tedious, or downright horrible.

Letter writing also requires quiet introspection to compose one’s thoughts. You need to analyze the things which occupy your mind. Sometimes they are mundane, trivial things such as what happened throughout the day. However, more often than not, that quiet introspection leads to clarity of thought which in turn fills a letter with musings that amount to wisdom and life advice.

That’s why letter writing is about legacy.

Now, as an older man who is denied the company of his father, look at the treasure Dan Marino has. His father has left him a bounty of wisdom, recorded in his own hand, composed out of love for his son. It is his legacy. When Dan opens up that file folder, he has a link to the past. But he has more than that. He has a way of bringing his father into the future, too. As a man who has sons of his own, he can go back and consult with his father through those letters. He can glean more wisdom and insight into his own personal experience by these epistolary visits with his dad. And even though his father is no longer here in the flesh, he has left a portion of himself. Because of those letters filled with words of life and wisdom, Dan is afforded the opportunity to continue that legacy and pass it on to his children.

Letter writing had diminished considerably with the advent of emails and text messaging. I propose that this year, at least monthly, that we each of us try to write a letter to someone we love. Let’s take the time to compose our thoughts, put them on paper- whether lovely stationary or a pretty card- and get them into the hands of someone special to us. I’m going to try and do this- though with a newborn I’m not making huge promises. But I think I can manage once a month. One letter every 30 days. It’s doable. And, I think, it’s important to set aside time to ponder someone we love in our hearts and then record those thoughts with pen and paper for them. Who’s with me?