BUILDING A LEGACY OF LOVE
Building a Legacy of Love
On March 15, 2025, I had a mental health breakdown which led to me being taken out of my home pantsless in handcuffs. It was not a scenario I had on my 2025 Bingo card, but given the year we’re experiencing, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After my removal, I was taken to the hospital and then ultimately a mental health facility where I was kept for three days. It was three of the most difficult days of my life including getting punched in the face by one of the other patients. It was rough, but during the whole experience, I knew God was with me. I knew I was not alone, but I also knew I had work to do. It’s amazing how much thinking and learning you can do in the quiet of a cell with no distractions.
I learned many important lessons during my three days, but the greatest lesson I learned was the importance of love. God is love and I feel like our jobs here on earth are to love other people as God loves us. This is an easy task for “easy” people to love, but we’re not called to just love the easy people, we’re called to love all of God’s children. I’m not saying it’s an easy assignment we’ve been given from God, but it’s the most important one.
The main reason I had to be institutionalized was because I was overworked at the startup I had founded and had been running for 12 years at this point. Over the past 12 years, I saw my friends and family less, I had less time for my son and I was giving a bare minimum amount of attention to my unbelievably forgiving husband. I was so focused on building my legacy of a business that I neglected my legacy of love. When we all face God when we die, is He going to care how much revenue our business made, what GPA I had in college, what my net worth is or any other KPIs we assign ourselves in life? The answer is a big NO.
God is going to look at the love we gave and the people we gave it to. Did we show God’s love to our friends and loved ones as well as our enemies? God is concerned with us building a legacy of love, not wealth.
I have been thinking about two great examples of legacies filled with love ever since I’ve been out of the facility - my grandfather and my friend, Dallas. My grandfather was a man of very few means. He had multiple jobs in his life including being in the Army during WWII, working as an insurance adjuster and ultimately as a postal employee. He and my grandmother never had much in life and he passed away with just about enough money to pay for his funeral. I couldn’t attend his funeral, but I did attend the four wakes that were held in his honor two days before the event and let me tell you what, that man left behind a legacy of love like no other. Each wake session was filled with a different group of people who knew him in various capacities - the American Legion family, his Catholic community, his former co-workers and so many others. Each session was packed to capacity and all I remember thinking was feeling proud to be related to him. He was my grandfather, so of course he was a special person in my life, but I was filled with so much pride to know that my grandfather had such a positive impact on so many other lives. My grandfather died the “richest” man I know and I know that he had a great convo with God when he made his way to heaven.
Another person I know who had a great conversation with God is my friend Dallas. I met Dallas when I was 23 years old working for Bank of America in Atlanta. He started as a co-worker and over the next 8 years of working with him became one of my closest friends to the point where my son called him Uncle Dallas. Dallas was one of the most beautiful and special people I ever met. He was never in a bad mood. It felt like he was put on this planet to raise the vibes of every room he was in. Dallas led a life of hard partying, though, and if I had to pick a friend who wouldn’t make it to 60, it would have been Dallas. Unfortunately, we lost Dallas suddenly in April 2024 at the age of 50. His death hit me like a ton of bricks, especially since I hadn’t found time to see him before he passed because of work commitments. I made my way to his funeral, though, and the massive church in which it was held was packed to the brim with so many other people, like me, who were blessed enough to know and love Dallas. Dallas died divorced, with no kids and in rough financial shape so his legacy on paper may not have been impressive; however, his legacy of love was on full display in that church. Turns out just about every one of his friends who had kids all called him Uncle Dallas as well. He was in a word - beloved.
As I transition in life from a job that I thought was my legacy, my hope is to work on my legacy of love similar to my grandfather and Dallas. I want to show more love to not only the people in my life but also to the people I wouldn’t normally show love. I hope you’ll join me in this quest. It’s clear this world could use a lot more love and God is calling us to stand up and love each other the way He loves us. I’m not saying the work will be easy, but the work of leaving a legacy of love behind seems like exactly the kind of work God would want us to do.