The Legacy of the Ring

Creating a future that flows from your past, but isn’t bound to it.

“Joe.”

Little did I know that would be the last word I could clearly understand from my dad. Sure there would be some incoherent mumbles and an, I think, “I’m ready to die,” but my name would be the last sure word.

He called me from the bed he’d left only once the day before, a trip to the bathroom, a last act of self-care that wouldn’thave happened without my assistance.

I came to his side and knelt down next to him. While most of his movements were now involuntary, he’d somehow managed to remove a ring from his right hand, and he placed it in mine.

The Ring

I’ve known this ring since I was a child. My Granny had it made for my Grandpa and he’d quickly decided it would become a family heirloom, something passed on to the oldest son (at least that’s how I’ve always heard it).

If there was any story or significance to the choice of three diamonds or the use of gold flecks, that knowledge died with my grandmother. However, after the ring was originally made, my uncle, a smith, added flecks my grandparents panned in the Black Hills.

There aren’t many things I get nostalgic about, nor are there many family heirlooms that I find myself wanting to hold on to, but the ring is one of them (a gold-dipped rose that my Grandpa gave to my Granny the Christmas after cancer took his life is the other one).

And the odd thing is, I’m not a gold and diamonds guy. If I saw the ring at a jewelry store, I’d find it ridiculously ostentatious. The idea that I’ve spent the last few days walking around with something that doubles the cash value of my possessions on my finger, boggles my mind. And yet I will resize it so it can fit on something other than the ring finger on my left hand.

But why? In a word, legacy. Although that means something different to me today than it did in years past, and it’s all a part of my reimagined manhood.

Legacy Then

Intended or not, the gold flecks from the Black Hills that my uncle added to the ring speak volumes about its origin and Burnham history.

While I am a second-generation American on my mom’s side, and a third-generation on my maternal grandmother’s side, my paternal grandfather’s family has been in the United States for generations. One line runs back to John Alden whocame to America as a crewman on the Mayflower and decided to settle in the New World.

The Mayflower Compact 1620: an 1899 painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris depicts John Alden signing the document.

The Burnham name came to the United States when three brothers landed in Pemaquid, Maine in the summer of 1635.

While none of these lines were frontiersmen who traveled West seeking gold, they all came to America seeking to create a life for themselves and, eventually, their families.

For my Grandpa, who grew up during the Great Depression in Adams, Nebraska, a town of less than 600 people even then, the ring is an outward symbol that like those Burnhams who came before, he’d made it. Between a career in the military and a second in the private sector, he’d done well for himself, achieving his vision of the American Dream. Through his investments, he positioned Granny so she had just as much money the day he died as the day she died over eight years later.

When my Dad first received the ring, it spent years unworn and sitting on his dresser. But then, without explanation, he started wearing it. Conscious or not, it came around the same time he’d matched his dad's acquired wealth. It was as if he’d established his legacy and now had a right to carry the symbol of his success.

In years past, carrying on that tradition was my understanding of legacy. It was about working hard to establish my place in society so I could wear the symbol that said, “I’ve made it.”

Abandoning a Legacy

So why did I abandon that sense of legacy? To put it simply, it is incompatible with the soul of soul.

While my father and grandfather wouldn’t talk about it in the same aggressive way, it’s a vision of manhood that functionally aligns with Andrew Tate, who claims that the greatest thing about being a man is that you come into the world with no value and have to earn your right to exist. It’s an understanding of legacy where it’s only after you’ve done enough that you get to wear the ring.

This stands in stark contrast to my conviction that we are all relentlessly beloved, not because of what we do, but simply because we are. Our biggest problem is failing to embrace and live from our belovedness.

So as my dad placed the ring in my hand, what vision of legacy came to mind?

Legacy Now

On Thursday afternoon, about 12 hours before he died, I knelt at my dad’s bedside and told him about fond memories of mine from childhood. I remember when he came home with beanbags for my brother and me. Then there was that time he took us to an amusement park. Or the day I forgot my sleeping pad in the back of his truck before a Scout camp out and, when he noticed it, he drove up to the campsite just so I’d be comfortable.

He also introduced us to travel which gave us opportunities to see different ways of being in the world. Here is where the conversation shifted.

Dad, I know we see the world differently.

We have radically different ideas of what makes for a good life and how society should be structured.

But also know that for both of us, what we believe is rooted in a set of convictions.

One of the things I most admire about you is the consistency in which you operate. And that is something I seek to embody in my life as well.

As I’ve said before, his experience in Vietnam, doing an MBA in the 70s, and the Republican takeover of evangelical Christianity each had a profound impact on how my dad saw the world. Once you understand that and his desire to walk in his father’s legacy, how he lived his life makes perfect sense.

In that clear consistency, I want to be like him. At the same time, I have a different set of values and experiences that I want to follow.

Wearing The Ring

So as I put on the ring I remember those who came before, but more importantly, it’s a reminder that where I come from doesn’t have to be where I’m going.

Instead, I should live each day with conviction, both in my belovedness and living consistently with my ultimate value of human thriving.

That is the legacy I want to embody. How about you?