The funny thing about legacies is what lives on after we’re gone. When I visited my high school Ceramics teacher’s class a few years after I had graduated, he pulled a porous rock off the tool shelf that I had used to imprint designs on pottery and introduced me to the class as the man behind the ‘Ainslie Bubble Effect’.
The pharoes left Pyramids, dedicated to honoring their lives and lineage. Scions of the Industrial Age bequeathed millions to hospitals, schools, libraries and buildings adorned with their names. Even regular, average people leave behind a multitude of children, grandchildren and subsequent generations.
My wife, left me a lifetime of memories and much more.
She also, unintentionally, bequeathed me a unique lexicon that was hers and then ours and now mine. It’s a mishmash of Yiddish, made up words and hidden meanings that have found there way into my daily vocabulary.
- Shakey Shakey Milkshake was something she would say in a sing-song voice whenever our dog shook herself off. Now I do it too.
- Oi Vey Shmere. The correct spelling is “oy vey ist mir”. I interpret this as “Oh my!”
- A Nauseous. What she and her best friend used to call a “soul patch” because when they saw a guy with one, it made them want to puke.
- Little Portulaca. A nickname for our dog. I’ve since used it as a nickname for both of the dogs I adopted after my wife died. I thought it was a type of mushroom, but wikipedia tells me it it a flowering plant.
- Keppi. Your head. As in “put your Keppie down in my lap”. I use it with my dogs now.
- Binky – Baby blanket. I think Liz used to calls hers that.
- Kibbee Lights – What Liz used to call Christmas Lights.
There are probably a dozen more I could add to this list that are so ingrained in my vernacular that I don’t even realize they came from Ellen.
But when I do, it always brings a smile to my face.