The Legacy Project: What is It & How It Can Help

What is the Legacy Project?

A legacy is a gift from one generation to the next. Although a legacy can be considered anything from a monetary gift to a special talent or even a keepsake handed down from one generation to the next, in this instance we would like to discuss a more complex and distinctive legacy—the legacy of a person’s history, thoughts, hopes, dreams and wishes and what those will mean to a future generation. When a person is facing death or a serious illness often their mind will focus on this type of legacy and what it means for them. The Legacy Project was developed to provide a structured way to collect, save, and store a family tree with historical information and stories, photographs, audio and video recordings, articles, and documents of significant life events and achievements. It is a practical way of capturing a family’s history filled with its memories and the precious events that represent an individual’s—along with a family’s—life story. The Legacy Project also provides guidance on how to plan end-of-life care, personal and financial affairs, and help simplify necessary family duties and vital decisions.

The goals of The Legacy Project is to give a family a clearer understanding of the meaning of their life history, love and interrelationships, and to create a record that will exemplify the significance of the family’s life story. Through personal and family interviews, via the videotaped family history, one can have a permanent life record of memories that can have great significance for future generations. Sometimes, a family history is documented because of family pride or interest in seeking information on where ancestors came from, their occupation or just how they lived. Sometimes it is done to obtain genetic or medical information which can be of vital value for family descendants.

How Can The Legacy Project Help?

In the 1970s, Cancer Supportive Care began the Life Tape Project^1,2,3 making audiotapes and, later, video recordings, CDs and DVDs, of cancer patients and their families to record their memories and thoughts, family history and stories, philosophy of life, wishes, goals, legacy, and family medical information. As the project progressed, we found that for some families the sharing of family history and philosophies became a turning point in their lives despite the fact that the interview lasted a little over an hour. Patients appreciated the opportunity to reassess their personal philosophies and goals as they talked about their life, affording them the chance to identify and understand their legacy to their family and make life changes to clarify relationships. Today, the Legacy Project integrates the lessons we have learned over the years from this first initial project.

Concepts of the Legacy Project

Being conscious of our potential mortality creates fear and anxiety concerning an uncertain future. Confronting death often gives one a greater appreciation of one’s life.

These thoughts and feelings were well expressed by Harvard psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton, MD, who discussed the human need for symbolic immortality and the confrontation with the nature of human existence when people contemplate death,⁴ which he pointed out was important to understand how when a person faces a life crisis, such as a diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, a stroke, or a critical accident, they become aware of their potential mortality. Read about the four types of symbolic immortality.

Using the concepts of symbolic immortality, it is proposed that the Legacy Project interviews can later be shared by many generations as a reflection of their heritage. A collection of family pictures, scrapbook of family events, stories, articles, documents and photographs, as well as audiotapes, CDs or DVDs can help portray a family history which might otherwise be lost after a person’s death. It allows the spirit and philosophy of one’s family to live on. It also helps foster self-observation, which is a powerful coping tool for reviewing the value of one’s life when dealing with age, illness or a life crisis, at a time when, hopefully, life changes can still be made. This permanent record of one’s family life history can be a marker for future generations to identify their roots and provide useful information about their ancestors.

In conducting a Legacy Project recording, one is encouraged to conduct interviews with various family members. Often, a good time to do this is at special occasions such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, family reunions, or at events specifically scheduled for this purpose. These family gatherings can often serve as a convenient opportunity for participants not only to convey and share their stories and information but also to add memories, as one story can bring other stories to mind.

Results of the Legacy Project

In our experience with the Life Tape Project alone after the one-and-a-half to two-hour interviews with cancer patients:

• 70% imparted personal philosophies
• 70% discussed existential dread
• 65% felt they gained perspective and meaning of the family
• 57% felt improved communication with their families

The project provided a powerful, safe and accessible intervention that improved family communication, promoting not only personal growth but also reduced existential anxiety through the identification of symbolic immortality. The Legacy Project provided a powerful, safe and accessible intervention that improved family communications, relationships but also connectedness by collecting a family life history, documents, pictures, audio, video, and CD recordings—and an ethical will.

Read The 5 Steps to Creating Your Legacy Project.

Posted in Advanced Directives, Advanced Planning, Communicating with Loved Ones, Dealing with Grief & Guilt, Dying with Dignity, Essential Documents, Get Organized: Tools for Caregiving, Living Wills & Advanced Directives, Supportive Homecare, Tranquility while Dying