An Irreplaceable Cog in the Wheel

How To Turn a Vision into a Legacy (published on Plough)

Early on in my husband’s and my courtship he told me about his Granny, his matriarchal great-grandmother — a wonderful woman of many skills, who brought the family together on the regular to dance and to eat.

“Those were the good old days,” he said. “But after she died the family fractured and we don’t get together anymore.”

He referred to them as the “glory days of our childhood”. They all lived around her, and could gather at her home any time of the day, any hour, really. Her house was like Grand Central Station. If you went over, there would be family and food. The family was close in those days, and so was the town. There were regular shindigs with dancing and food. When she passed away, though, everyone fell apart—grew apart—even though nobody moved and most of them remained living only blocks apart from one another. 

The house still stands. Nearly all the people who made up those days still live. So why is it that the death of one woman could’ve ended it all so abruptly, swiftly, and completely? It can’t all be blamed on bureaucracy, inheritance fights, and lack of motivation. Or maybe it can be. But there must be a larger answer that could remedy even those blockades so that when the woman who runs the scene dies, the show goes on. 

Her vision lives on. Often I hear Andy and his cousin and his aunts and uncles reminiscing, wishing they could bring back those cherished times. But there is—perhaps never was—no tangible legacy. And perhaps this lack of foresight (outside of the control of any member of the family) is where the deterioration began, where it’s happened for all of us. It really started out with the idea that this woman was irreplaceable. When she was gone, there was none to replace her. 

This story is familiar to each of us in some way. Humanity is still steadily moving into the firm grasp of modernity, and as much as we talk ill of our patriarchal or matriarchal figures, we resent them, too, for leaving us — or for leaving us ill equipped to fill their shoes.

While we grieve the death of our role models who were well loved, we also mourn the loss of the things they never taught us.

Because there will never be a pie as good as Aunt Susan’s - why did she never share her “secret” recipe? Grandma was too busy mending our ripped jeans she never bothered to teach us to sew — and we’re reminded of it every time we throw away a garment that she could’ve fixed in a half hour. The old Widow Jim knew the names of birds you’ll never find on Wikipedia. Not to mention the best method for repairing a caving house foundation. A bachelor uncle who brings the young boys camping and teaches them how to carve birds out of bits of wood and where to set the best fur traps. The old man—a babbling cynic—who delights his relatives and neighbors with odd treasures and tales, and who knows just what to do with a bored child.

The chain has been broken — there is no more passing of the torch, and so the flame is dimming. And yet it is not only the fault of those who did everything for us, but our own for thinking that they would remain with us forever, or that we could someday miraculously take over (or that someone else would).

And somewhere within that was the idea that it always had to be on one person’s shoulders, instead of many aunts and mothers and grandmothers, and many uncles and fathers and grandfathers. Somewhere in the dropping of the torch the idea that one person had to carry it alone was adapted, to hold up their own light and be their own person, disconnected from ancestral roots, traditions, and proverbs.

And so we’ve come to my article recently posted on Plough about that fine line of carrying a torch to light many more in the hands of many others. I share two stories of two dear people who lived out a life of vision — the one a Quaker lady who actively says her work will continue once she is gone, and an older man in West Virginia who is now passed away but his legacy remains.

You can read it for free here: After reading, come back to see the picture of the General Store at the end of this post!

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When you make yourself irreplaceable, you put a time stamp on that which you love. You become a cog in the wheel. Yes, while you live you are viewed as necessary. The wheel turns and everyone is nourished. And then you are gone, an irreplaceable, broken cog in the wheel… it stops turning. The glory days are remembered well—but what good are they when that which you offered is no longer accessible? Your gift has expired, because you lacked what it took to become a conduit—the vision clogged, stopping with you instead of flowing through you from God to others.

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Pictures and videos from O'Hurley's General Store on my last visit. He is the man playing the hammered dulcimer.