THE END, a beautiful beginning

“Life is unpredictable”

We can only live in the present, we don’t know what the future has planned for us.

Most people like to stay prepared for the consequences of their future.

Old Henry was one of such people. He was an eighty-five-year-old man who had just gone through a kidney transplant and was very well aware that he did not have a lot of time left.

One fine day he decided to sit down and write down his will, divide all his properties and other virtues amongst his four children.

Henry was a very affluent man he owned quite a few properties and had various other expensive possessions. But one of the things that Henry owned was very valuable to his, family. He had inherited it from his great grandparents . It was a small trunk, made of gold and it had the signatures of a few ancestors carved on it. Its beauty could amaze any individual. Henry was puzzled about which one of his four kids to leave the trunk to. All his children were doing very well in life, they lived in big mansions and had luxuries as well. He didn’t want any of them to feel bad and think that Henry was in favour of the other.

This trunk was one of the things that even money couldn’t buy, it was LEGACY, it was TRADITION. After contemplating for several days Old Henry came to a final decision and gave his will to his attorney. He was aware that this is not in the best interests of his children.

About six months later Henry passed away due to kidney failure. This was a very hard time for his family. They buried him next to his late wife with a heavy heart. All four of his children family and his friends grieved upon their loss. They were all weeping during the funeral ceremony. Afterall Willian Shakespeare once said that “To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”

Even though they would carry this loss with them throughout their lives they had to move on and handle their, Katie, Amanda, David and Chloe, his four children decided to set up a meeting with Old Henry’s lawyer in order to discuss his will.

None of them said it but on the inside, each one was wishing to get the gold trunk. They reached the lawyers’ office and comfortably sat themselves down. The lawyer started reading the divisions of all the properties. All of them had been distributed equally among the four. Henry had also written letters for each one of them. They all were touched by Henry’s sweet words. But everything doesn’t happen easily. After a while the eldest sibling, Katie said, “Who gets the gold trunk? ”Everyone looked at the lawyer with curiosity.

The lawyer got up from his chair and said, “Your wise father had thought a lot about this and in order to avoid conflict amongst the four of you he came to an unbiased decision.”

Chloe interrupted the lawyer by saying, “So who inherits that beauty….”The lawyer said, “None of you.” Everyone’s face went pale, they were shocked and at the same time confused. They starred at the lawyer with curious eyes. Then after a few minutes of silence, he began speaking. He said, “Henry decided to end the tradition of passing the gold trunk to the next generation. He wants you all to together bury it next to him .”All of them were surprised and looked at each other with puzzled eyes. David said, “But he can't end this tradition one of us has to get it, we can’t just bury it.”He sounded extremely flabbergasted by his father’s decision.

”Sibling relationships are complicated. All family relationships are.”

When they left the office they all started blaming each other for their father’s decision. The reason Henry did this was that he wanted his children to never fight little did he know that they would put the blame on one another. Katie started blaming David because of his sensitive nature in return he accused her of always being a gold digger. Their tone continued to grow ruder. Amanda said to Chloe that if she were not so quarrelsome, maybe one of them would have gotten the trunk. Chloe did not remain silent either. On the inside, they all felt that they could fight their way out, in order to finally believe that a legacy of their family had come to an end.

It was hard on each one of them. At one point or the other, they had imagined themselves to be the owner of the trunk. For days none of them talked to each other.

One week later the lawyer gave each one of them a call as the time to bury the trunk had come. All of them had to face each other now and the worst of all they had to face their fear. Burying the trunk was a hard enough thing but the reason that they didn’t want to do it at all was that they had to visit their parents’ grave. The four of them had a common fear, they didn’t have to guts to visit the grave, it made them feel depressed and at the same time gave them nightmares.

They all had to meet the lawyer in the parking lot because he was in possession of the trunk. At first, they didn’t look each other in the eye but Chloe made the first move. She said, “I know this has been hard on all four of us, but this is something we need to do together.” Katie added, “For dad.”

Amanda and David leapt in for a hug. All of them burst into tears. David said, “There was one thing that always taught us, it was to stick together no matter what. “Amanda continued by saying, “Let’s do this! Let's forget about the trunk all that matters is that we stay together, a trunk cannot effect our strong relationship.” All four of them held hands and walked up front to face their fears.

This might have been the end of a legacy it was also a beginning of something, it was the beginning of a beautiful start. Katie, David, Amanda and Chloe lost an important possession that day but they gained faith in each other that was the most important thing. Afterall Billy Graham was right when he said,

“The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”