Hello, I would like to submit a piece about legacy with my own drawing.

Legacy is defined in the dictionary as: “something passed on by someone”

I completed a counselling programme and largely accepted involuntary childlessness. I still couldn’t handle the word “legacy” and perhaps this is the hardest part of the journey.

Society makes us feel like the only way to have a meaningful life is through having children and then of course this ensures automatic legacy.

I am now not confident it happens like that, things that are important are not necessarily passed down through families, for example, if the initial recipient has no interest in the heirloom or just doesn’t like it. When I grew up, no knowledge was passed to me about who my great grandparents were or what they did or even their names.

The word legacy causes so much upset, now it is time to think about how we want shape the future.

Growing up I saw no positive role models, struggled in the education system and signed up to an apprentice scheme to move away from home at the first opportunity. I did go back into education to learn more and get a better career whilst doing this, l met my Husband. Soon after we got married and wanted to have a family. Endometriosis ended all that, I became obsessed with having a family as our culture dictates this as the ideal above all else. I still struggled to find positive support services or anything to inspire me.

I didn’t want a career any more, I only wanted a family and because that did not happen there was nothing left, no purpose, only a big black hole of pointlessness and nowhere to get any help.

One day, later on, someone held a faint light in front of me and asked me is that all I wanted for myself? In that moment I couldn’t understand how it had all come to this, I was shocked. After that, some days the light was there for a short while and I started to agree, was this all I wanted for myself, so little.

Bit by bit, I saw that things have changed, time has moved on and there are places of support, the involuntary childless are growing and we are going to be heard. We can all play our part in each others lives, there is much we can do to make a better future for us and those that will follow us, it will be our path and joint legacy.

So, I am thinking:

• Is there a way we can make a place where our creative works will matter, or create advice on how to teach ourselves publishing and digitising skills.

• Can we put together thoughts about what legacy really means, legacy doesn’t just happen for us but it can be overcome.

• Can we encourage others to speak out about involuntary childlessness, it could be starting up a small network at your place of work or just raising your hand to say I am here and available if a colleague desperately needs to talk to someone else.

• Consider whether we can help by being a type of role model. Find out what matters to us and support it.

• See what opportunities we can find, it could be volunteering.

• Could we re-train in our careers and this leads to further opportunity.

• Consider carefully how we will gift our possessions in a will, perhaps the answers are not there for us but one day they might be.

These steps are carved into stone and are a real scene from a remote place in Kings Canyon National Park in California. The natural world and vast expanses of the USA are very inspiring and not a landscape familiar to us. It reminds me of the unknown path we are all following.

Amanda Mark