How creating a beautiful scrapbook or legacy letter could ensure your memories and life lessons live on for future generations

‘Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality’

DALAI LAMA

Have you ever stopped to think about what kind of legacy you’ll leave for your loved ones? Are you a great storyteller, regaling friends and family with colourful anecdotes about your childhood and the key moments that created your values? Or are there things that have shaped your beliefs and ideas that nobody knows about but you? Perhaps you’ve lost someone close and wish you’d spent more time talking to them about their life stories before they died. Many people write a will to set out their wishes regarding their finances, property and possessions after their death. But what about all the experiences, memories, lessons and stories they’ve built up during their lifetime? Those are less concrete and can be much harder to pass on. That’s why taking time to put together a bespoke legacy letter, scrapbook or memory box, to be opened by your loved ones after your death, can be a life-affirming and comforting experience.

Time-honoured tradition

Passing on wisdom and stories, as well as money and possessions, is an idea rooted in numerous ancient traditions. In the Bible, Jacob is described gathering his children around his bedside to tell them how they should live after he has gone. This is thought to have formed the template for the ancient Jewish tradition of writing an ethical will – adocument that outlines values and wisdom – that is still used today and passed down from one generation to the next. In medieval times, an ethical will might have contained directions from a father to his children, revealing morals, feelings and pearls of wisdom.