Had a chat with my ‘rents earlier about legacy. they have never asked me about ‘settling down and having kids’. Mom hasn’t asked me about a grandchild or done what many moms frequently do with (not so) subtle pressure to have spawn.
Got me to thinking that i am not carrying my mother’s maiden namesake, nor my stepfathers. My father’s name won’t end with me as there are several cousins that will carry it on. Not sure it really matters to me as far as ‘must keep the name going’.
What got me thinking was that my parents have extensive scrap albums. Not only of our development, but of our travels and their more recent extensive travels. When they pass, I will get them. When I pass, then what? Be a shame to see them tossed in the trash, but really, who would look through them with any real interest. same thing with my journals I wrote many years back.
Tonight I thought “what if I digitize them” and put pictures of each page up on the web. That would be slick, would preserve them. but again, when I pass, odds are my web page gets tar’d up and becomes jericho.zip on a few people’s hard drive (per my request). So 20+ volumes of scrap albums would become 20+ megs of pics would become 2+ megs of a zip file over time.
I may do it anyway.
[Update: As of mid-2020 all of the family albums have been digitized.]