Legacy is a word that is often used but seldom planned for in our modern culture. Everyone wants to believe that they will leave things better for their children and grandchildren and that they will have made a difference in this world by the time they leave it. However, few people think about or plan for this legacy—this left-behind impact—until it’s too late to make it what you would really want it to be.
I pondered these thoughts this summer while watching my wife hold the hands of her mother for what was most likely the last time. Her Stage 4, inoperable liver cancer, Cholangiocarcinoma to be exact, had reduced the once babysitter of Donald Trump’s kids and “Mrs. Alabama” to a tired, frail, and yet hopeful person. I was fortunate to have spent some time with her in recent weeks—once for 10 days on an Alaskan cruise she insisted on taking with my family and once in her home in Perdido Key, Florida.
During these times, I found myself learning so much from her (both intentionally and incidentally) by just listening and observing. It was a feast of wisdom and perspective that I thought was appropriate to pass along here, and anywhere else possible.
I’ll Never Spend It All
I always could talk about financial matters with my mother-in-law. She and her husband, David, were investing enthusiasts back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they had done quite well with individual stocks. We’d get together and talk about their winners and losers and how none of the talking heads on TV really knew what they were talking about. As a college kid, I sort of knew what I was talking about, but to impress them, I acted like I knew more. They had been smart with their money, buying low and selling high and not letting the emotional side of investing influence their decisions. They had also been great at buying cheap properties near beaches. They bought small, old houses in the country for almost nothing, moved them to the beach locations, renovated them, put them up on stilts, and sold them for many multiples of their investment in them. They had done well financially for many years.
As I stood in a cruise ship room, somewhere in Alaska, my mother-in-law said something I’ll never forget. After a few minor mishaps with their room, she said, “I wish I had just stuck to my guns and paid the extra $20,000 and gotten us on a newer and better ship. I mean, what am I going to do with all of this money anyway? I’ll never spend it all.” There it was! The antidote to the workaholism and hoarding in which many doctors in their 30s, 40s, and even later find themselves trapped. We build up our accounts, sacrificing so much in the meantime, for a future that we do not control and circumstances that could render those accounts moot at any time.
The wisdom I took away wasn’t to not save, but it was instead to balance purposeful saving with purposeful spending. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and have a legacy of financially relying on my children or the government. However, I also don’t want my legacy to be that I had lots of money with no important relationships or memories from my life. I want to be wise in preparing for the future but not at the expense of missing out on the most important things in living life along the way.
While saving prudently over the past two years, we have also taken trips to Spain, Greece, and South Korea with our family, blending service to children, churches, and the poor with family vacations and senior trips. If I “time value” the money I spent on these trips, it will have some impact on my future “retirement number.” However, the cost of missing these opportunities dwarfs that missing number. For most doctors, your career income will make it fairly easy to have enough money throughout your lives.
Be wise with your savings, but don’t forget what your purposes are behind having money (and they shouldn’t all just be for retirement). Spend a little (or a lot) when the right and best things come along in life!
More information here:Reconcile Quickly . . . Life Is Short
My mother-in-law has always been a smart woman with strong emotions and opinions. It has made her a strong leader and successful in most everything she has done. However, some aspects of this “strong personality” have also created rifts in some relationships. One such rift was with my wife. While being very close in the early years of their family, my wife and mother-in-law had experienced some of the normal relational “bumps and bruises” that families often experience as children get older and break away to start their own lives. Authority transitions from the parent to the young adult son or daughter, and the struggle that ensues can leave hurt feelings and sometimes bitterness in its wake.
For years, the relationship between my wife and mother-in-law has been sweet and sour, hot and cold, up and down. My wife would make peaceful overtures toward her mom, get hurt, and recoil in sadness and confusion. Her mom would then take her turn attempting to forge a better relationship, only to be met with distrust and a less-than-willing partner in my wife. This went on for more than 20 years.
Then, in one afternoon, hearts were stirred, and the ice melted.
I watched as my wife sat beside her dying mother, holding both hands. I’m not sure of exactly everything that was said, but there was apologizing, laughing, crying, and more affection than I had ever seen between the two in our 28 years of dating and marriage. I saw my wife loving and encouraging her mother, and my mother-in-law giving the gift of final reconciliation and a beautiful high note on which to end their relationship. It was the sort of thing that I knew would change the tenor of the legacy of their relationship forever.
However, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why hadn’t this been done sooner?” The wisdom I took away that day was not to wait on pursuing true, honest, humble reconciliation with friends and family with whom I am at odds. Many of us live our lives estranged or separated (at least emotionally) from people we love or used to love very much. I saw a glimpse of what could have been and only wished it had been done much earlier so that more life could have been lived in sweet fellowship between my wife and mother-in-law. Don’t wait!
Deal Honestly with All of Life
Let’s face it, we all think we are living, but actually, we’re all dying. It’s not a sad or morbid thought . . . just a fact. As doctors, you know how the body ages over time and that it's headed toward the same destination as everyone else: death. So, why can’t we deal with life and death and everything in between with more honesty and candor? We mostly focus on life and rarely talk about death. We also, quite frankly, waste more time than we should on things that don’t matter and talk about things that don’t accomplish anything for ourselves or anyone. We are a wasteful and distracted lot who have deteriorating bodies and minds and are prone to self-destructive thoughts and habits.
There, I said it. Now that we’ve been honest about who we are and where we are headed, we can deal honestly with the rest of life.
My mother-in-law was always a brutally honest person. I loved that about her, and I also didn’t at times. Over my time with her this summer, she talked about her faith in Jesus and her lack of fear of death, how her husband is having a hard time dealing with the thought of being alone, how she wants us to help him find a new wife and who might be a good prospect (right in front of him), what she wants done at her “celebration of life” ceremony (also called a funeral), how she wants certain financial matters handled, what she wishes she could do or could have done, what she is sad about missing in the coming years, and other topics we don’t ever talk or think about. Some would say that maybe her mind was slipping, but I think she was seeing things and saying things more clearly than ever.
It’s amazing how, as I listened, my mother-in-law had little time for small talk and got right to the things that mattered in most conversations. It’s as if she was trying to say, “Don’t waste my time with silly things. My time is short.” However, none of us know when our last day will be, so shouldn’t we take a similar stance? In Psalm 90:12, Moses is attributed as praying and asking God to “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” There is wisdom in being cognizant of our mortality and conforming our days to greater purposefulness in light of this truth.
I’m not advocating for banishing all fun and frivolity. A little bit of that brings levity and enjoyment to our lives. I am advocating that we not wait until our final days to talk honestly about all of life. We are all dying. So, now what? Have you experienced pain in your life? So, now what? Has someone hurt you and they don’t even know it? So, now what? Are you a really great clinician but have a really bad bedside manner? So, now what? Did you have a neglectful father, and now you are following the same pattern? So, now what?
Dealing with life, death, and everything in between with honesty, like my mother-in-law, could lead to greater purpose and impact and enhance your legacy while there is still time to make it lasting.
More information here:OK . . . So, Now What?
It’s amazing how death gives so much more value to life and how life gives so much more meaningfulness to death. After watching my mother-in-law gracefully, honestly, boldly, and lovingly face death, I learned a lot that has helped me to reorient my perspective. Her faith made her unafraid of death, her priority of making relationships right spurred me on to forgive and reconcile with loved ones quickly, and her honesty taught me about lifelong financial priorities and having purpose in my words and actions daily.
As I think about the legacy that I’m already working on, I hope that these perspective shifts will guide me into living a more loving, purposeful, and impactful life . . . and I hope they do for you as well.
What do you think? What kind of wisdom have you learned from older relatives? How have you applied it to your own life?
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to Doc Insure and Matt Wiggins, one of our Platinum Level (contributing $8,000+) Sponsors for the WCI Medical School Scholarship, for helping physicians secure the best DI policies. This is the third of our three scholarship-sponsored posts for 2026. Thank you for supporting those who support this site and especially the scholarship. All proceeds go to the scholarship winners.]
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