Beech Tree News Network

Mark Twain left instructions for what to do after his death.  He died in 1910 with hundreds of pages of memoirs.  His instructions were not to publish these pages until one hundred years later.  The pages were kept in a vault at the University of California, Berkely, where they were removed and published in 2010.

              There have been many speculations as to why Mark Twain wanted one hundred years between the time of his death and the publication of his memoirs.  The Communicator publication speculated, “He wanted to secure his popularity with readers long after he was gone.”  The New Yorker magazine observed, “He wanted to speak freely about everyone and everything.”  An NPR radio piece stated, “He felt some passages were too personal or inflammatory.”  I’ve read some of those pages.  I’m going with the NPR synopsis.

              One hundred years is a worry peculiar to famous people, not the common man.  I can’t see anyone saying to Beethoven, “I don’t know why you’re stressing over that Fifth Symphony.  It’s not gonna matter in a hundred years.”  (Beethoven worked on the Fifth on and off from 1804 to 1808. Esm.rochester.edu.)

              The Messiah violin, made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716, has a current value of $20 million.  It is the only one of the violin maker’s instruments he would not sell.  The violin is housed in a museum in Oxford, England.  It has remained a collector’s piece for over 300 years, still in pristine condition, because it has rarely been played (violinspiration.com).  None of us will be around in 300 years.  Each of us has been taken out of the case and played and will continue to be played until we are completely worn out.

              I am certainly not against the preservation of art.  Thank goodness, Beethoven’s Fifth and Stradivari’s Messiah or Van Gogh’s Starry Night, for that matter, were not kicked under a bed somewhere to gather dust along side a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich and a pair of gym shoes.  I do understand, however, that what Psalms 39 says about how “our days are numbered” and that “we are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing” is something relevant to each of us.

              There is a post by Ryan Swain making its way around fb that encourages us to consider what will be left of us in 100 years.  He states, “Strangers will live in our homes…all our possessions will be unknown.  Our descendants will hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us.  After we die…we are just a portrait on someone’s bookshelf, and a few years later, our history, photos and deeds disappear in history’s oblivion.”  Mr. Swain goes on to encourage us to take time for what’s really important, our relationships.

              Have you ever studied the faces of the portraits hanging on the walls of Cracker Barrel Restaurants?  Nobody has any idea who these people are.  That’s the whole point.  If someone could identify Aunt Bueleen or Uncle Vaudis, their pictures wouldn’t be hanging on the wall.

 Mr. Swain is right.  For most of us, our legacy will be how we treated the people in our lives right now, how much love and understanding we freely gave.  And that’s really okay with me.  I will gladly take my place next to Aunt Bueleen and Uncle Vaudis on the Cracker Barrel wall.