Open main menu

Independence: Pass it on

by Alicia MacLeay
February 16, 2009

My father died from cancer this month. It goes without saying that this is a grievous event in my life. However, death is also an event each of us will come to eventually, a realization that naturally brings forth thoughts of how one is living his or her life.

While my father became sicker and sicker this winter, and while preparing for his recent memorial service, I thought a lot about the legacies he left his family and friends. It’s a lengthy and full list, the mark of a good life, but the first trait that came to mind, perhaps one of the most important ones he passed on to me, is the ability to be independent and self sufficient.

As a kid in the late seventies and eighties, I walked to school by myself as early as kindergarten. In grade school I wandered and explored the woods and fields surrounding our second place at the end of a dirt road in New Hampshire. I climbed on the prominent boulders, built forts with my brother, and looked for frogs in puddles, the papery remnants of snakeskins, and shiny rocks.

At home in small town Connecticut I climbed trees, rode my bike to friends’ houses, returning hours later, and was regularly left loose in a local state park to explore its brook and woods while my dad hit golf balls in the nearby field. At the age of 6 my parents sent me to overnight camp.

In hindsight my parents gave me a remarkable amount of freedom. It was more like the norm then though. Both of my parents were present for me and my older brother, involved with us and our activities—as a teen I’d have said they were too present—but, they never coddled. We were encouraged to go outside and play.

When I think back on those childhood explorations, I recall feeling in control of my environment and myself, and gaining a natural sense of independence I still carry.

Independence. That’s a darn good legacy.

Open up the door and pass it on to some kids you know.