PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

At a memorial service for a friend in a park down by the sea

as we remembered her I wondered…how will people remember me?

I imagine most of the people at the memorial…from her friends to her family members

were thinking a similar thought…how do I want to be remembered?

This is a simple question…but its ripples extend quite far…

because how we choose to answer…determines who we are. 

The following night our daughter texted us…asking if we’d like to meet

her and a group of her friends…at a pub just down the street.

So off we went to join our daughter and her friends in a great old neighborhood bar

where we drank, we laughed, we sang songs like Piano Man 

accompanied by Shamus on his guitar.

And as I sat next to Deborah watching Ali and her friends so loving and carefree

I realized in that pub…how I’d like people to remember me.

When I look back on my life…from child to parenthood 

I don’t need to be remembered for being great…

but I’d like to be remembered for being good.

For being a good person…the best good person that I can…

A good husband, teacher, father, grandfather, a good friend…a good man.

I think I would be happy…when I reach my final day…

If everyone who remembers me…remembers me this way.

Yes, I thought of a good way I’d like to be remembered…in the Irish Pub that night

That people will think of me whenever they’re in the mood for a melody…

and remember…how I always left them feeling alright.