My father lived from August 1932 to October 2025. Ninety-three years. In that time, he witnessed what was practically an entire world passing by. So much happened during his lifetime that it is almost difficult to grasp just how profoundly the world changed while he was here. Wars, economic crises, men walking on the Moon, television, computers, the internet, smartphones that today sit in our pockets and do things that would have seemed like science fiction when he was young.
And yet, like most ordinary people, he had a great deal of influence over his own life and virtually none over the course of world history.
That isn't a sad observation. It's simply the truth.
While he was living his life, the world carried on without him. Millions of things happened that he probably never knew about, and countless others happened without the world ever knowing anything about him. That is, after all, the condition of most human beings: we live, work, love, argue, raise children, worry, grow old and eventually die, while history calmly carries on doing its thing.
And so I started wondering what, in the end, a person actually leaves behind.
In my father's case, today, that tangible trace is me.
Put that way, it might sound like something enormous, or perhaps like nothing at all. In reality, it is simply a fact: I exist because he existed. And when I think of him, that may be the most concrete thing that remains. Not a statue. Not a street named after him. Not a place in the history books.
A person.
Me.
There is an old idea that, in order to leave some mark on the world, a person should do at least three things: have a child, plant a tree and write a book.
I don't know who came up with it and, frankly, it doesn't really matter. But I like the idea.
My father did at least one of those things.
In that respect, I am already a little ahead of him: I have two daughters.
I haven't planted the tree yet. And I haven't written the book either.
The book, though, is where things get complicated.
Writing a book is relatively easy. Getting it published is another matter. Getting people to read it is harder still. But the real challenge is something else entirely: making sure the book doesn't end up being pulped.
Because that's where most books eventually end up.
First editions that aren't reprinted eventually become nothing more than paper to be disposed of. And there is something strangely ironic about that. You can spend months, perhaps years, writing a book, convinced that you are leaving something of yourself behind, only for that book to end up in a warehouse and, eventually, in the recycling mill.
So I can't yet say that I've left a book behind.
I can say that I've written things.
But that's not quite the same thing.
And I can't put the tree on my list of accomplishments either.
Maybe I'll plant one someday. Maybe I'll even live long enough to watch it grow for a few years. But if it is truly going to become a centuries-old tree, then it is obvious that it will no longer be my business. Other people will watch it grow. And perhaps that is the whole point.
So I have to take stock with a clear head.
My father had ninety-three years in which to make his mark. I don't know how much time I have left. It could be many years. It could be far fewer than I imagine. Nobody knows.
For now, though, if I compare where I am with where he was, I can't complain.
He left me.
I will leave two daughters.
I still need to plant a tree.
And I still need to write a book that doesn't end up in the pulping bin.
Beyond that, I'm not sure how much really matters.
Because perhaps the point isn't actually to become famous, to be remembered by thousands of people, or to secure a place in the history books. That is reserved for very few.
For everyone else, the mark we leave is much smaller.
It is a daughter who remembers her father.
A photograph someone keeps in a drawer.
A phrase someone continues to repeat.
A tree you planted that, many years later, keeps growing without knowing who you were.
A book that, against all odds, someone still opens.
Maybe that's all there is.
My father didn't change the world. I probably won't change it either.
But he passed through this world, and something remained.
I am that something.
And now it is my turn to see whether I can leave something behind that reaches a little farther than I do.
There is still time for the tree.
As for the book, we'll see.
For now, taking stock with a clear head, I'm content with my two daughters.
