Happy Great-Great-Grandfather’s Day

What, if anything, will still exist of me when my great-great-grandchild grows up? I doubt they’ll know my name. And if they do, it probably won’t carry much with it—just a name, detached from memory.

I figure there are really only two things I can give that far-off descendant: matter and meaning.

Matter is everything you leave behind that can be touched, measured, stored, or documented. It’s your DNA, passed down quietly. It’s your body, weathered by time and effort. It’s the work you poured yourself into—the yard you cared for, the business you built, the things you fixed with your own hands. It’s the belongings you held onto. The photos you shared. And maybe most of all, it’s your signature—on a plan, a letter, or a check—proof that, for a while, you were here, and you moved something forward.

I’ve spent a lot of my life focused on matter—what I can build, buy, earn, or protect. Most of us do. In a country like this, surrounded by so much stuff, it’s easy to believe that’s what lasts. That what we hold is what we leave.

But the more I think about it, the more I’m not so sure.

Because here’s what I’ve come to see:

Unless preserved in rare conditions, your body disappears within decades. Bones might last a little longer, but even they give way. Cremation speeds it up. Physically, almost nothing of you sticks around.

Your memory doesn’t last much longer. Your children will remember you. Your grandchildren might—at least in fragments. But by the third generation, you start to blur. By the fifth, you’re gone—unless someone made a point to save you. Your voice, your quirks, your everyday rhythms—vanished.

Your digital life? That goes even faster. Accounts get deleted. Photos fall into obsolete formats. Cloud drives get abandoned. Even with the best intentions, your online self rarely survives the churn of technology.

The objects you touched—your books, your tools, your keepsakes—most won’t last a century. Unless someone ties them to a story worth telling, they get sold, tossed, or forgotten.

Even your DNA thins out. Half goes to your child, a quarter to your grandchild, and so on. By the time it reaches your great-great-grandchild, just a sliver remains—if anything at all.

That’s what I’ve come to realize: almost none of the matter survives. None of it. Rich or poor, your matter will decay; the only thing money can do is slow down the rate. Eventually, the physical trace fades.

Meaning, on the other hand, is different. You can’t see it—but you can feel it. And it has a strange way of surviving in places you never expected.

Not all meaning is good. Some of it’s heavy. Some of it gets passed down like a wound.

There’s dark meaning—the kind that shows up in bitterness, control, silence, or anger. It’s passed on without words. A raised voice that echoes into the next generation. A kind of distance that becomes normal. Fear disguised as strength. That sticks, too.

But there’s also light meaning—the kind that steadies someone decades later. Quiet courage. Steadiness in hard moments. A way of listening, or forgiving, or staying true to your word. Sometimes it’s passed on in a phrase, sometimes in a habit, sometimes in nothing more than the way you lived when no one was watching.

So how does meaning actually survive?

Learned behavior. Rituals. Stories.

It starts with what we do—again and again. The way we respond to pressure. How we handle joy. How we treat the people we could get away with ignoring. These aren’t just choices. They’re signals. Children don’t copy our philosophies. They copy our instincts. That’s where meaning begins.

Then come the rituals—the small, shared actions that say: this is who we are. The holiday meals. The way we start the day. The way we say goodbye. These don’t need explanation to carry weight. The repetition does the work. They form a kind of emotional architecture.

And finally, there are stories. The ones we choose to repeat, and the ones that get repeated about us. “He never gave up.” “She always made time.” “This is what we do in our family.” These stories outlive the storyteller. They carry meaning like lanterns.

So if I want to offer anything to someone five generations from now, it won’t be a house or a portfolio. Those things disappear. Even if they last, they don’t teach.

What might last—what might still be shaping someone long after I’m gone—is the meaning I choose to live out now.

So maybe the best I can do is this:

Minimize my obsession with matter.
Minimize the transmission of dark meaning.
And focus—deliberately, imperfectly—on passing along what is light, steady, and good.

That may not leave a name behind. But it might leave something better.
A way of being. A quiet kind of compass.
Something that outlives me, shaping someone I’ll never meet.

And if that’s all I leave, maybe it’s enough.