What Legacy Will You Leave? Powerful Tales of Character and Choice
From the selfless sacrifice of a father ensuring his son’s
future to a war hero’s act of bravery, these stories remind us that character
shapes destiny. Whether it’s George Mallory’s pursuit of Everest at the cost of
fatherhood, Steve Jobs’ realization that death clarifies life’s purpose, or a
drowning girl saved by a man who couldn’t swim, each tale demonstrates the
power of choice.
The question remains: When the final chapter of your life is
written, what will your legacy be?
Story topics: Courage, Sacrifice, Integrity,
Leadership, Justice, Perseverance, Heroism, Truth, Character, Legacy
1.
Fame or Family? A Son’s Reflection on His
Father’s Legacy
George Mallory is the famous mountain climber who died
attempting to reach the peak of Mount Everest and may well have been the first
person to reach the peak.
But the pursuit of his dream took a toll on his family. In
the introduction to the book Last Climb, George’s son John, who is was just
three years old when his father perished, speaks of both his pride at what his
father achieved and his sadness.
He wrote, “I would so much rather have known my father than
to have grown up in the shadow of a legend, a hero, as some people perceive him
to be.”
2.
A Drilling Mistake That Drained a Lake in Hours
November 21, 1980, began like any other day for the men
aboard a Texaco oil rig on Lake Pegneur, a 1300-acre lake in Louisiana USA. Day
in, and day out they would sink a drill down through the muddy bottom of the lake
searching for oil.
But on November 21, 1980 things got a little crazy. Below
the surface of the lake was a salt mine, and it appears someone on the Texaco
oil rig made a miscalculation that sent their drill straight into one of the
salt mine’s tunnels.
What happened next was not dissimilar to pulling the plug
out of a bath. A massive whirlpool formed, that first brought down the oil rig
(the workers had earlier evacuated), and took down a second oil rig, eleven barges,
a tug boat, trucks, trees, and a loading dock. In three hours all 13.2 billion
litres of water in that lake were drained, along with everything on and around
the lake.
Environmental Application
I suspect this story is an apt parable for our times. God
has given us a beautiful and amazing planet, a planet with two unique features.
First, it has the ability to renew itself. We can harvest
fish from the ocean and the fish that remain will reproduce to replace those we
have taken. We can take trees from the forests and new ones will grow up to
take their place.
Second, the earth has the capacity to take the waste we
produce and recycle it into something useful. Perhaps the greatest example is
the one we all learned in school – trees absorb the carbon dioxide we produce
and turn it into oxygen.
It’s quite amazing. But here’s the bad news. We are
withdrawing resources from the earth at a rate faster than they can replenish
and we are creating waste at a rate faster than the earth can absorb and
recycle. And scientists tell us that we are heading for disaster.
In 2009 a group of scientists wrote a paper called
“Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity”. The
concept was profound but simple.
The earth has a number of key systems that we depend on. But
these systems all have limits, and once we cross those limits the negative
impacts begin to cascade.
Of these systems, they were able to measure seven, and they
found we have already crossed the safe boundary on three and we are rapidly
approaching the boundary on the rest.
3.
How Facing Death Helped Steve Jobs Live with
Purpose
In 2005 Steve Jobs gave the commencement speech at Stamford
University. In commencement speeches, the speaker traditionally passes on some
wisdom for life that will help the graduating students commence the next phase
of their life.
Steve Jobs spoke about three things and one of them was
death.
He described going to a doctor’s appointment in 2004 and
being told he had pancreatic cancer and had just 3-6 months to live. It was
devastating news.
Later the same evening he had further tests that revealed he
had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that could be treated with surgery.
He had the surgery and lived for another seven years before the cancer returned
to claim his life.
During that 2005 speech at Stamford Jobs spoke of the
importance of death.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important
tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death,
leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know
to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already
naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
4.
Why Doing What’s Right Matters
The movie Casualties of War tells the true story of a squad
of soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War. While there they both saw and
participated in some terrible crimes.
One of their crimes was to abduct and rape a young
Vietnamese girl. The lead role in the film is played by Michael J. Fox. He
takes on the character of a Private Erikson, a soldier who is part of the squad
but didn’t join in the abduction and rape.
As he struggles with what has happened, he says to the other
men in his squad, “Just because each of us might at any second be blown away,
we’re acting like we can do anything we want, as though it doesn’t matter what
we do.
I’m thinking it’s just the opposite. Because we might be
dead in the next split second, maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do.
Because maybe it matters more. Maybe it matters more than we ever know.”
5.
A Hero Who Couldn’t Swim
One wet and miserable morning in Ohio Ray Blankenship was
making breakfast in when he looked out the window onto the open stormwater
drain that ran alongside his house.
What he saw terrified him – a small girl being swept down
the drain. He also knew that further downstream, the ditch disappeared with a
roar underneath the road.
Ray ran out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to
get ahead of the little girl. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning
water. He surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over
end.
Within about one metre of the drain going under the road,
Ray’s free hand felt something protruding from one bank. He grabbed a hold and
held on for dear life. “If I can just hang on until help comes,” he thought.
But he did better than that. By the time fire department rescuers arrived, Ray
had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989,
Ray Blankenship was awarded the US Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal.
The award is fitting, Ray Blankenship was at even greater
risk to himself than most people knew. You see, Ray can’t swim.
Source: Reported in Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
6.
A Mob Lawyer, A War Hero, and A Family’s
Redemption
Let me tell you two stories about two men who came from
Chicago, USA.
One
Chicago’s O’Hare International airport is named after one of
Chicago’s most famous and heroic sons.
Butch O’Hare was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft
carrier Lexington during the Second World War. About ten weeks after the attack
on Pearl Harbour Butch O’Hare was flying his single engine Grumman Hellcat
fighter plane off the Gilbert islands.
He and another pilot were the only ones aloft when O’Hare
spotted a group of nine Japanese bombers heading straight for his aircraft
carrier, the Lexington. O’Hare knew the odds were against him – the other
fighter planes on the carrier were refuelling and would not have time to take
off. It was up to Butch and the other Hellcat to stop the Japanese bombers.
The odds were dramatically reduced when Butch discovered the
machine guns on the second Hellcat had seized. It was just Butch O’Hare and
four minutes between the Japanese bombers and the 2000 crew aboard the
Lexington.
Butch dove in and started the attack. The crew of the
Lexington watched as he engaged the Japanese bombers – their guns training in
on his Hellcat fighter.
With astonishing skill Butch O’Hare emerged victorious,
shooting down five of the nine Japanese bombers and badly damaging another. The
last three were taken out by planes that managed to get off the decks of the
Lexington while the air battle raged above them.
President Roosevelt later described Butch O’Hare’s actions
as “one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the
history of combat aviation.”
Butch was promoted two ranks and designated the US Navy’s
first “Ace” of World War 2.
Two
Some years before World War 2 a millionaire lawyer known as
“Easy Eddie” was involved in illegal gambling rackets with the notorious
Chicago gangster Al Capone.
Eddie had the patent rights to the mechanical rabbits used
in dog racing and he and was brought into the Hawthorne Kennel Club by Capone
as a major partner. The races were usually always fixed and although dog racing
was illegal Capone and Eddie kept the matter tied up in the courts.
This allowed them to continue to run their tracks. When dog
racing was finally declared illegal Eddie and Capone simply switched their
tracks over to horseracing, which was legal, and continued to fix races and
rake in money.
In addition to his race track interests, Eddie performed a
variety of legal services for the Capone Mob. He looked after mob members
arrested for murder, gambling and prostitution and set up elaborate real estate
and stock transactions for Capone, himself and other insiders of the gang.
There was however another side to Eddie. Eddie was a father.
He had a son and daughters whom he loved dearly, and the wealth he had amassed
allowed him to shower everything money could buy upon his beloved children.
And in many ways, he was a good father. Eddie sought out the
best schools for his children and spent lots of time with them attending their
school productions and sporting events, and just hanging around together.
But there was one thing Eddie’s money couldn’t buy –
integrity and respectability. Eddie’s son finished high school and declared he
wanted to go into the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
But to get there you needed more than money. You needed the
approval of the congressman for your state.
Eddie decided his son’s future was more important than his
own. He approached the authorities and indicated he would be willing to testify
against Capone.
On the basis of Eddie’s witness Al Capone went to jail for
11 years and his stranglehold on Chicago was broken. Eddie’s son also got into
the Annapolis Naval Academy. But for Eddie the price was severe.
Capone swore he would kill Eddie and in 1937 Eddie was
gunned to death as he drove his car home from work. In his pocket, the police
found a poem which read:
The clock of life is wound but once
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time.
For the clock may soon be still.
I know what you’re thinking. What do these two stories have
to do with one another? Well, you see, Butch O’Hare was Easy Eddie’s son.
Source: Adapted from Illinois Police and Sheriff’s News
archives 1939-1949