44 answers answered between 2006 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A
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For them, home is the world. For them, every human being is just one member of that large human family you have. ... if we have more children like mine, in my view, we will not have war.
Shortly after my terminal diagnosis, I knew that one of my biggest priorities was to create memories for my children. Chloe and Logan are both so young that it's likely they'll have no direct memories of me. Dylan is the oldest, and at 5 (turns 6 in December), his memories are likely to be fuzzy. Hence the engineering question: What would make for the sharpest, most visceral memory, esp. for a kid who loves animals? Answer: go for a Dolphin Swim!
The rest should go to music education, since that’s what made such a difference in my life. I created a charitable trust called the Independent Musicians Charitable
This pledge will leave my lifestyle untouched and that of my children as well. They have already received significant sums for their personal use and will receive more in the future. They live comfortable and productive lives.
So it seems to be my responsibility, particularly to my children, also to my wife and friends, is not to be Pollyanna and pretend everything's okay no one would take me seriously if I said that but it's to be as present in their lives now as I can be so that in years to come, they don't feel either guilty or bad at my having been left out of their lives, that they feel still a very strong not a memory of particular actions but a memory of a complete family rather than a broken one. That seems to be something I can do or try to do.
What I expect to happen is that my body will fail, my mind will cease to function and that will be that. My genes will not live on, because I have had no children. I am comforted by Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes.
Yet one thing cannot be robbed of her futurity: my daughter, Cady. I hope I’ll live long enough that she has some memory of me. Words have a longevity I do not. I had thought I could leave her a series of letters — but what would they really say? ... There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past. That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied.
So maybe I don’t try to figure it out. Maybe I just aim to get the couch right: strong bones, high-quality leather, something earthy and animal and real. A surface that knows something of what it was to be alive, that warms to our touch and cools in our absence. Also: an expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead — the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.
Ever since they were born, Vic and I have been clear: happiness and confidence are the two things we want most for our children and the rest can all fall into place.
Exactly what my parents left me: the knowledge of the difference between good and bad and right and wrong. Everything else is entirely up to them.
Good self-esteem.
A sense of the world being full of possibility and it being in their hands to make it a better one.
A healthy planet.
An understanding that kindness is the answer.
I’d like them to inherit my optimism.
As little rubbish to sort through as possible.
A sense of optimism.
Spirit of adventure and kindness.
Happy memories.
The best possible understanding of who they are and where they came from.