I’m going to a funeral tomorrow—one of the last in a generation of my wife’s family. As I looked through this woman’s life history, I found myself reflecting on how little I truly knew of her younger days. I only came to know her after meeting my wife, and by then, she was already heading into retirement. She had lived a full life before I ever met her, so I had no real context for who she was or what she represented. I had heard the basics, but never had the opportunity to sit with her, to listen, and to understand.
That got me thinking about how one generation passes the torch to the next—or in some cases, fails to do so. And that, to me, is deeply sad.
In ancient Greece, there was a tradition called lampadedromia—a torch relay that was part of a religious festival honoring the gods. This was not the grand sporting spectacle we see in the modern Olympic Games. It was sacred. The mythology goes that Prometheus stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. In honor of that gift, runners would pass a lit torch to one another in a relay race. This act came to symbolize continuity—the transfer of honor and responsibility to the next generation.
“Passing the torch” has become our phrase for this idea. It’s the act of shifting responsibility to those who will follow.
I am now at the age when the previous two generations are slowly starting to pass away. Those I grew up admiring—and in some cases, fearing—are now growing old, and many have already passed. The last ten years are marked by funerals—some small, some monumental—as patriarchs and matriarchs are laid to rest. Families gather, sometimes fractured, sometimes unified, to pay their respects.
For a few of these, I did what I could—organizing, documenting, creating a eulogy or a video tribute that captured something of their life. My hope was to pass a fragment of their legacy on to the next generation.
But sadly, most people leave this world before ever organizing their story. Their life is left in fragments—scraps for others to dig through. Precious mementos, gifts, knick-knacks, journals, letters—all too often discarded as trash. A few items are preserved, but most are lost.
Tonight, I thought about the things I hold onto because they’re meaningful to me. When I die, no one will know what they meant. Their significance will vanish. The story behind them, erased.
On the shelf beside me is a tattered history book from my college days. A teacher gave it to me—a gift, a reward for my involvement in his course. He signed it and left a note. That book reminds me of a time when I was deeply engaged with learning, and thrilled to find a teacher who shared that passion. But no one knows that story. And I’m sure that book will one day end up in a donation bin or landfill when someone clears out my things.
That sounds depressing, right? Actually—no. Quite the opposite.
I am alive now. I am breathing, and I still have a sharp and reflective mind. I have time to think. I have time to decide what I will place in the torch I pass to the next generation. I have three children. They don’t have families of their own yet, but someday they might. And I can act now—right now—to do something about this “angel of history” being propelled into the future.
I can preserve what I’ve learned. I can record the raw, honest accumulation of my experiences and beliefs. This, to me, is the true torch-passing: the commitment to help the next generation live more fully, love more deeply, and perhaps understand just a little better than we did.
If you think about it, there is nothing else. At least not in this mortal existence. Nothing will remain of us except what we manage to teach to those who follow. In the end, we are all teachers—teachers of the next generation. And if we are not, then humanity would falter.
We have carried this burden for thousands of years. Perhaps the heaviness I feel is the weight of generations before me, who felt the same responsibility.
I honor those who recorded their lives, who preserved something of themselves so that I might see it. Through them, and by them, I carry a legacy. A legacy that keeps me grounded in what I believe, and true to the principles my ancestors quietly committed to and passed on.
