16 | February | 2014 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Imagine yourself at the end of your life. What sort of legacy will you leave? Describe the lasting effect you want to have on the world, after you’re gone.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us LEGACY.

Woodgrange Park Cemetery

Yes, Daily Prompt, thank you for another opportunity to show one of my wonderful lively photos from a forgotten cemetery somewhere in the east of London, actually Woodgrange, where the remains of my ancestors were once preserved. Unfortunately in the meanwhile, most were dug up to make room for the new Muslim cemetery. I somehow do not think it bothered my ancestors, they were past caring.

To continue in this happy-go-lucky mood of what will I leave behind, I am still thinking about it. Not that I will remain, one day I will go. I have been blogging for some years now, my first efforts were in a site called Yahoo 350 which collapsed. Most of us were searching for somewhere new and we arrived in a place called Multiply, which has also gone to the happy blogging Hunting Grounds in the meanwhile. I seem to have left a trail of death and destruction in my wake. Reflecting on those old days there is no longer an online legacy of those sites, most of us saved what we could. As I was constantly backing up, I had everything in Blogger and partly in WordPress. I am diverging.

I remember one particular blogger in those two sites. His name was Mr. Mad (we all have our blog names). I never met Mr. Mad personally. He was probably the average retired man, had weight problems, liked his drink, but he could write. He was an electrician all his working life and he liked felines. The star of his blog was Mr. Tiddlywinkles, a cat that once arrived on his doorstep (figuratively speaking). Mr. Tiddlywinkles could talk, took possession of Mr. Mad and his home and made the rules. I think I got the idea of my three felines taking an active part in my blog from Mr. Mad. He would write regularly and once told us in a blog the reason was a bet he had with a colleague. The colleague said if he continued his feline story for three months he would buy him a crate of beer, so Mr. Mad continued and got his beer. But Mr. Mad did not stop and he entertained us for a couple of years with the adventures of Mr. Tiddlywinkles and his pals, as well as the International Cat Club. One day Mr. Mad told us all in Multiply that he would no longer be writing. We all knew he had problems with diabetes, he was probably not the youngest, and lived alone. He had a few friends and one day a colleague in the Multiply blogging site told us that Mr. Mad had passed away a few months before. I was sad to lose a blogging friend that I had never known. His site was still up and running and I copied the first story he ever wrote about Mr. Tiddlywinkles before Multiply left the blogging universe.. It exists somewhere in my blogs here. Mr. Mad had no family that I know of, but he had a few drinking friends: his legacy still exists in my memory.

He probably did not even intend to leave a legacy behind him, but he did. Thank you Mr. Mad for the many laughs I had with your life and times of Mr. Tiddleywinkles and his gang.

I do not know if I will leave a legacy behind me and it will not be my problem. No-one lives for ever. Of course I was thinking about having a pyramid built on the local cemetery when I am gone, but in Switzerland that would need planning permission, which would probably not be granted. It will probably just be a small square stone with https://angloswiss-chronicles.com/ inscribed on it (in gold letters of course) to show that I had been there and done that.

I do not want to have a lasting effect on the world after I am gone, unless of course my talent for writing works of literature would be discovered at long last, although I would prefer this to happen when I am still amongst the bloggers and not amongst the departed bloggers. There is no point in gaining recognition when it will not be financially rewarded and I don’t think I will be having a bank account on the other side. I do not even know where I am going. It might be Hades, the Heavens, Nirvana, Purgatory, Olam Ha-Ba etc. etc. The choice is big enough and they might not even want me.

Daily Prompt have you developed a “Death wish” complex? Yesterday I was invited to write about the job I wanted, although I am already 67 years old and now I am told to choose what I will leave behind when I am gone. Oh well, let’s just look on the bright side of death.

Daily Prompt: Don’t You Forget About Me

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