Ramblings in C minor

I don't know if my girls will ever know their significance in my life.  I am not the best at expressing it.  They'll never know the nights I stayed awake in tears - fearful I had made a wrong decision in raising them. That something I did may have caused them pain now or in the future.  That I wasn't there to protect them when they needed it. That I did something, through my own shortcomings to drive them away when I love them so. They won't know how I beam with pride at their accomplishments and hope that something I did had some small role in them achieving it.   
  
I know we all re-frame and re-package our stories several times as we age.  I know each person tends to be the hero of their own story. And I know and accept that our parents often become the bad guys in our stories at some point.  I am OK with all of this, I guess.  It wouldn't matter if I wasn't, it is just the nature of mankind.    
  
I didn't really have a point when I started this entry but it seems I have come to one: I guess my point in all of this is to say that I certainly hope I have been more of a help than a hindrance for them.I hope that something I did or said set them in the right direction or that they see parts of me in them that they love.

I know that when I recognize a trait of my own as one passed on to me from my parents, I kind of smile and feel close to them for a minute - even the traits I have spent many prayers, wishes, and one hex trying to rid myself of. Since I don't believe in an afterlife, at least not the kind that religious people tend to believe in, I guess this is how I view the 'afterlife'.  It's those pieces of you that you gave to others occasionally being recognized.It is your legacy.

I used to like to dream of a day, many decades after my life has faded where a distant descendant would sit staring out their back window, hand turned to support their chin, hips tilted slightly forward, shoulders rounded,  and not know it was me, their great great grandfather just popping in to help them gather their thoughts for the day and maybe, if there is more to death,  observing his legacy with love. That - to me - is heaven.