Daily Prompt: Don’t You Forget About Me

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

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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37 thoughts on “Daily Prompt: Don’t You Forget About Me”

James McDonall

16/02/2014 at 17:33

Lovely thoughts, indeed, thanks. And I agree, WP seems to be on a rather morose tangent just at the mo’. I enjoy your efforts very much.

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 19:28
  
  Thanks. Good job I have a morbid sense of humour now and again.
  
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tnkerr

16/02/2014 at 17:55

There are quite a few of us who have discovered your literary talents. Please keep up the good work.

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 19:29
  
  Thankyou for your kind comments
  
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Marilyn Armstrong

16/02/2014 at 18:51

Well said.

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 19:31
  
  Thanks. since doing this daily prompt stuff, I have already had to write two obituaries for me, it can only get better.
  
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ranu802

16/02/2014 at 19:25

I think wordpress gives us these prompts to have a good laugh reading what comes from bloggers who use these prompts.

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 19:30
  
  They are just prompts, so I let myself be prompted every day, not knowing where it will lead to.
  
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Martha Kennedy

16/02/2014 at 20:12

The photo is beautiful and the eulogy to Mr. Mad very touching. It made me think of this quotation a friend sent me years ago, “Her full nature … spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” George Eliot, Middlemarch

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 20:27
  
  Thank you so much. Here is a link to a blog I once wrote about Mr. Mad In Memory of Mr. Mad
  
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The Presents of Presence

16/02/2014 at 20:19

I really liked this post ~ well, you know I like your posts to begin with anyway! 🙂 But Mr. Mad’s legacy to you was special and in turn, your sharing it with us, made it live even longer. You are special as well. ♥

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- angloswiss
  
  16/02/2014 at 20:23
  
  Thankyou. Mr. Mad was someone I have never forgotten.
  
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  - The Presents of Presence
    
    16/02/2014 at 21:12
    
    Amazing isn’t it? How his spirit lives on in your mind? Who knows how we impact others unknowingly! 🙂
    
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sued51

17/02/2014 at 01:24

Thanks for sharing the story of Mr. Mad in the context of this prompt…I’m off to read the original link…

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Rob's Surf Report

17/02/2014 at 20:15

I think Valhalla would be a neat place to find on the other side.

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- angloswiss
  
  17/02/2014 at 20:28
  
  Not bad, especially if you are a Wagner fan, but all that loud music might be a bit nerve wrecking after a while.
  
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  - Rob's Surf Report
    
    17/02/2014 at 22:47
    
    That’s why they wear earplugs that look like the wings attached to the helmets. 🙂
    
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  - Rob's Surf Report
    
    17/02/2014 at 22:47
    
    That’s why they wear earplugs that look like the wings attached to the helmets. 🙂
    
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Marilyn Armstrong

06/07/2015 at 16:41

I know this is from last year, but it’s still very good. And funny. And a bit sad. All the things that go to making a love little piece. I figure when I’m gone, I’m gone. A few people will remember me for a while, but the past eventually erases us all, from the least of us to the greatest. We are all hear for but a brief visit. I hope to get a few more laughs before it’s over.

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- angloswiss
  
  06/07/2015 at 16:56
  
  These old prompts do bring back some memories and I never forgot Mr. Mad. Anyhow I have just finished this years version. I never run out of ideas in connection with cemeteries and the details to go with them.
  
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Soul n Spirit

06/07/2015 at 18:11

I missed it last year but today I came to know how Fluffy and tabby chose to write a blog. Mr.Mad story touched the chords. WordPress is privileged to have you and good for us that your stuff was saved when Multiply doomed.

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- angloswiss
  
  06/07/2015 at 18:16
  
  We were a good community in Multiply. Many of us are now in Facebook, where some of my colleagues still operate their own sites (as I also do with my blogs), mainly on photography. we also have a site in Blogger for photos. Otherwise I found my new place in WordPress. Yes, Mr. Mad certainly left an impact. He was a retired electrician and began writing as a bet with a colleague for a crate of beer if he did it for a month, but the months became a few years.
  
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