What I Hope You Inherit
— Nicholas Peters
The things I most want to leave you cannot be written into any will. But they are the only inheritance that will actually change your life.
My dear Kaitlyn, Caleb, and Brady,
There will come a day, hopefully far from now, when the practical parts of an inheritance are handled — accounts, properties, businesses, papers signed in a lawyer''s office.
None of that is what I most want to leave you.
What I most want to leave you cannot be written into any will.
I want you to inherit a certain way of walking into a room. Present. Prepared. Kind. Unimpressed by the wrong things and deeply moved by the right ones.
I want you to inherit the habit of doing what you said you would do, long after the mood to do it has passed.
I want you to inherit a bias toward generosity — with your time, your attention, your money, your forgiveness.
I want you to inherit a love for the woman or man you build a home with, and the courage to keep choosing them on the hard days.
Everything else is dust compared to that.
With love,
Dad