Will Anyone Remember

An article popped up on my phone today about Buddy Guy turning 89 years old. He was quoted as saying, “I’m the last old man playing the Blues.” For those of you who aren’t Blues fans, you may have never heard of Buddy so let me fill you in. He ranks right up there with Blues greats, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Etta James. I’ve had the pleasure of attending two of his performances over the years and came away smiling both times. I’m sure if you search the net for his recordings you’ll feel the same. Buddy may be my inspiration for writing this, however this is not about him.

Those of us on the Vocal platform consider ourselves writers, authors, poets, novelists, creators, you choose the tag you’re most comfortable with. What we call ourselves is less important than the reasons why we spend untold hours seated at a keyboard racking our brains for just the right word to impactfully complete a thought. Are we searching for others who might agree with our point of view, or possibly seeking the acclaim garnered from the masses when a well told story has been released into the world? Maybe the thing we are all searching for is a small slice of immortality.

Buddy Guy knows that after he’s strummed his last cord and penned his final song, people in the Blues community will remember his name and recall how masterfully he played his guitar. Will we be afforded the same recognition? I have three children, ten grandchildren, and two great grandsons with one great granddaughter on the way. My kids have dutifully purchased the books I’ve published, but I believe only the oldest one has read them. It was my oldest granddaughter who surprised me during a phone call last week by informing me that she now owns all three of my books. I’m sure you can imagine how happy that made me. But is this a legacy?

I have a question for those of you who have reached this point in my musing, Do you know your great grandparents names? What about your great-great- grandparents names? Maybe the reason why the DNA heritage companies are so popular is because so many of our predecessors had to work so hard on their day-to-day existence that there was no time to work on building a legacy for their descendants to refer to. Is that what we are doing with all our scribblings? Is it legacy building?

I’m sure it’s safe to say that very few twenty or thirty-year-olds give a lot of consideration as to how their descendants or the world in general will remember them. They are busy building their careers and families. It’s usually not until people reach their late forties or fifties that the question, “How will I be remembered after I’m dead?, or, more realistically, “Will anyone remember I existed?” Once people realize that the only thing connecting them to the future is a block of stone with their name carved into it, one of two things usually happens. Either a person will tell themselves, It’s too late to change things now, or they’ll start giving out mementoes to the younger generations in the hope that the kids, after they grow up, will say, “My grandpa or grandma gave me this when I was ten.”

So, what has all this rambling got to do with Buddy Guy and Vocal writers? Simply this, Buddy is someone who will never need to worry about his legacy. One hundred years from now, people will still be listening to his music. He has cemented his connection to future generations. We writers are also building a link to future generations, probably not as strong as Buddy’s, but a great, great, grandchild may one day pick up one of your writings and learn a little bit about you and how you thought. Maybe some of us will be lucky enough to write a bestseller and achieve a form of immortality. Then we will have an answer to the question, “Will Anyone Remember?”