There’s something powerful about sitting with a Thought of the Day and Question of the Day especially on a day like today. This post explores how legacies are built in quiet, everyday moments and how the senses can unexpectedly bring a person back to life in your memory. Let’s talk about dads, stories, smells, and the things that stick with us long after someone’s gone to bed or gone for good.
Thought of the Day: The legacy of a father is in the stories his kids will one day tell.
Not the trophies. Not the title on the door. Not even the number of soccer games attended or missed (though those are recorded in the secret annals of childhood memory, too).
The real legacy? It’s in the stories we tell later.
“I remember how my dad always…” That sentence is the real inheritance.
Maybe it’s that he whistled while making pancakes. Or that he yelled at the TV during Yankees games like the ump could actually hear him. Or that he always smelled like a mix of sweat, Old Spice, and whatever car he was fixing that week. Maybe he didn’t say much, but when he did, it stuck. Or maybe he always said something, sometimes too much, but you’d give anything to hear it again.
We don’t always get to choose our legacy. We just live, and the stories get written along the way. But on Father’s Day, I can’t help but think: if we slowed down just a bit, maybe we could be more intentional about the ones we’re writing.
Question of the Day: What smell, sound, or phrase instantly reminds you of your dad?
For me, it’s the smell of sawdust and grease. Not motor oil in a bottle, but used oil, warm, lived-in, stained with story.
It reminds me of the garage, which was less of a workspace and more of a shrine to every broken thing that might get fixed “one of these weekends.” That scent hits me, and suddenly I’m seven years old, handing him the wrong wrench (again), trying to be helpful and failing adorably.
Maybe for you it’s the sound of a screen door slamming. Or the phrase, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” (Which, if your dad was anything like mine, was said at least once a week more if you had siblings.)
Smells and sounds bypass logic. They hit memory straight in the gut. It’s wild how a random scent can throw you back decades, to a version of yourself you almost forgot.
And that’s the point. Memory isn’t linear. Legacy isn’t planned. But it’s real. And it lingers.
If you haven’t read it yet, you might like this post about failure bring universal, or this one about ruminating about misfortune.
Tell Me a Story
What reminds you of your dad? Is it a scent? A sound? A saying you now hear coming out of your own mouth?
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Let’s keep writing the stories worth telling.
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