On June 5, 1989 a solitary man stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen square. The image is emblazoned on the minds of many who long for a more democratic China. Eight years earlier, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report had a report about five gay men in California who suffered from a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with a weakened immune system. For those concerned with AIDS, it was a key moment.

Yet for many of us the day will be remembered as a friend’s birthday or some other important event in our personal lives, or want have any significance. Yet these moments that make up a dull day may not be special to us, but to someone we love, they may have special meaning some day.

In Been There, Emily writes about the letter Elizabeth Edwards is writing to her children. She talked about a book that she had written with a friend ‘about leaving a legacy for our loved ones.’ To me, that is part of blogging.

My daughters rarely read my blog. Perhaps some day they will. Perhaps my blog will provide insights to them or to grandchildren or great grandchildren years hence.
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

Perhaps some day when Faith is old and gray and full of sleep And nodding by the fire, she will read the words her mother wrote.

So, I hope that my words, together with Stacie’s, Emily’s and Elizabeth’s words will be a legacy to our loved ones. Hopefully, they will be more than just some memorial in the future but will also motivate all of us to leave meaningful legacies to our loved ones by working to fight disease, hunger, injustice, whether it be AIDS and Tiananmen square or the simple diseases, hungers and injustices that we run across in our daily lives.