About Us

We are Pam Grieco and Ellen Cooley –
sisters from birth, friends for life.

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And beg to ask the question –

What does Legacy mean to you?

The 2nd definition for legacy on Dictionary.com is:

Anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor

Synonyms for legacy on Thesaurus.com include:

Gift, Inheritance, Tradition, Birthright, Heirloom

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We think that people (us included) as they age, begin to think about what they want to say before they leave this planet. But we don’t think that a lot of us do something about it. Not because we don’t want to, but because it seems daunting to figure out how to start, how to document it, what to say. So, we put it off for tomorrow.

Welcome to the Leaving a Life Legacy Family where we believe that it is as easy as answering one question at a time. Here on this blog, we will be answering one question a week – each of us in our own voice. As we document our own attempts at legacy leaving, our goal is to inspire you to have conversations with your circles; to ask each other the questions that we are answering each week and to get comfortable telling the stories of your life.

Read on below to learn a bit about each of us, and why this project is a passion of ours.

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I come from a small family – Mom, Dad and three children. Older brother, ME, younger sister – you notice I sit directly in the middle right? (That tidbit may come into play in some of my writing on this blog and it may not, we’ll just have to see.) I will always be grateful for growing up in this family and for the examples that were set for me by my parents especially as I navigated creating a family of my own.

Over the course of 12 years starting in the late 80’s, I lost three members of that nuclear family – Mom first, then Dad and lastly my brother. These losses made a huge impact on my personality but when my brother died at the young age of 53, it was like I had been hit by a truck. I can remember watching his kids grieve and thinking “they will never know how he felt about brown corduroy” or “did he tell them the story about that time he was showing off in the Tedeschi’s parking lot?” It was those moments that made me evaluate what I knew about my own Mom and Dad – what did they leave me for stories? Did I actually know how they felt, thought and desired as people not just as my parents?

During that time, I happened upon a quote that has haunted me ever since:

“Every death is like the burning of a library. ”  ~Alex Haley

I know for a fact that I feel this way about my three loved ones. While the love we shared was precious, I just wish I had thought to ask the questions. I wish I had taken the time to step off the Treadmill of life and help them to document a legacy to leave for all of us.

And so began my decades-long-fascination with legacy and how to leave it for our loved ones. In 2011, I made my first attempt at this. I created, printed and gave to my three kids a book that detailed my values, authors I resonate with and basically described my spiritual journey. I will never forget their thinly veiled disappointment when I gave them those books. I remember one comment “Oh, I thought this was going to be a story of your life.” Now, I know that those books are important to them and while they may not read them now, there will be a time when I am gone that they will be pouring over the pages, wanting to feel closer to me. So, I have no regrets in creating that particular book but vowed that I could do better.

This project is my way of “writing” these wrongs in my own life and hopefully, my sister and I can inspire others to do the same. I am delighted to be creating this legacy with Ellen whom I love dearly, enjoy bouncing ideas off of and who is so deeply ingrained in my legacy that it wouldn’t make sense to do this without her hand to hold.

 

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The task of writing a bio at 56 seems absolutely daunting – or at least it did to me.  Attempting to chronicle all of those years of life, the ups and downs, the mistakes and the triumphs, the joys and sadness(es) ….see what I mean? 

So I sat on the undertaking, ruminating on just what I could possibly say to give someone else even a small glimpse of who I am. It was then that I asked my young friend Sarah to describe me – and without hesitation, she said:  Coffee, Cats and Church. 

The 3 C’s.  These are the trio of words she lightheartedly used in her quick assessment; but ‘ya know what?  Those three nouns really ARE important parts of the fabric of my life!

As I have matured (that’s a kind way of saying I’m an old broad), Coffee has become so much more important to both my physical self and my psyche.  I so look forward to that first sip of iced coffee in the morning (yes, true New Englanders still drink iced coffee in the dead of Winter!) and the restorative balm it provides me.  Having not been an imbiber of coffee until I hit my 40’s, I now find myself with an almost constant To-Go cup in hand of dark roast blend, skim milk with 2 Stevia. Like a cigarette smoker and the first inhale, upon my first sip, I find myself almost sighing in an odd kind of relief. A relief of sorts that helps me to plant my feet firmly on the ground and move forward through the day’s challenges. Not sure my Primary Care would agree but it works for me!

Cats?  Well, I am pretty confident that I verge on the fine line between sanity and the Crazy Cat Lady syndrome.  Though I have only two at the moment (Johnna and Berta, aptly named after two of my favorite businessmen – the ‘boys’ of Life Is Good), I could easily slip into the of hoarding of animals, and dream of someday living on a large farm (aka sanctuary) where I could live in blissful ignorance of my obsession.

And church.  We were not raised in a church or with ties to a particular type of religion….but we were raised by one very important tenet in our home:  The Golden Rule.  Though I was not aware of its origin or its exact wording, I understood how essential it was to treat others kindly.  I have a powerful recollection of coming home one day from school being distraught at something that had happened on the bus on the way home.  Though I didn’t have the words for it at my tender age, a younger boy from the neighborhood had been bullied by two older kids – and I was feeling bad for not standing up for him.  Mom was generally the ’giver of truths’ in our family and as we sat at the kitchen table hashing out the situation, I may have finally grasped my role in The Rule.   The next morning, with butterflies in my stomach, I walked down the aisle of the bus, past the bullies, and sat my tush down in the seat with the boy who had been the recipient of their wrath the day before.  We didn’t talk at all, awkwardness prevailed, but the bullies didn’t engage with him at all that day.    The Golden Rule became dear to my heart and a concept to which I adhere to this day.  That is, I hope to be good enough to live the life my parents had hoped for me.  One in which I can see each person solely for who they are – and dispose of the baggage and titles with which we label each other. And treat each other as family.

But I deviate from Sarah’s original listing of the 3 C’s.

Church:  Today, in middle age and heading quickly into senior citizenship, I do find myself ‘in’ a church.  In my 40’s, I walked into a church for a funeral and have not left since.  That day, I saw the congregation not only reaching out to console the grieving family, but reaching out to one another. It was unmistakably a community of like-minded souls at the “LittleYellow Church” like I had never experienced before.  Though I understand it sounds hokey, I felt like I was home.  As time went on, I realized that I had found a place in which I could be myself, be fully loved and make life-long friendships, all while learning about God and solidifying my own beliefs in my own time.  It was – and is – as comfortable and welcoming as my very first home:  the one which my parents provided me and my siblings.  Home is where the heart is…..and my heart is happy to have found a ‘home’ in church.

And P.S.  Though this post oftentimes sounds like I’m an ageist or worried about sliding into the ‘latter years of my life’ – the exact opposite is true.  I revel in my grey hair, the tell tale signs of aging occurring in my body;  we cannot slow down time as much as we would like.  I remind myself daily of how my elderly father would greet the day during his last ten years alive.  He’d sit up in bed, plant his feet firmly on the floor and declare,  “It sucks to grow old…but beats the alternative!”  His somewhat rough proclamation matches mine wholeheartedly …..”How lucky are we to be alive?”

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