The Last Message
- Vernon C. Lindsay, PhD
- Dec 26, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
Have you ever thought about your last message? By this, I mean the last words you will leave behind for your family, friends, and community. It’s morbid to discuss death, but it’s also foolish to ignore the reality of our limited time on Earth.
Thinking about legacy can clarify priorities, reduce stress, and clear barriers to significant success.
One day, hopefully not any time soon, people will reference us as Ancestors.
What will people say? Does it matter?
On this first day of Kwanzaa, Umoja, and the final blog post of 2025, I will share ideas about legacy. First and foremost, legacy transcends the money and materials we leave for our family and friends.
Our last message must reflect more of what we do and less of what we say.
“Words are beautiful, but action is supreme.”- Che Guevara
It’s easy to give advice or speak for a cause, but hard to adhere to the wisdom of ourselves and others.
In 2025, I asked myself a question I found in a Robin Sharma book. “How do I want family, friends, associates, and coworkers to remember me?” My written replies used words like “courage, humility, discipline, and loving.”
Pause and ask yourself, how might others describe you?
This is not a call to live for the approval of others. It's important to check in with ourselves before it’s time to check out.
As I drafted this post, I sat in a church office surrounded by shelves of books offering guidance and insight into a Christian view of God. While my children helped their aunt with a Christmas play rehearsal, I absorbed the moment.
The setting where many of us hold funerals aligns with this topic. People go to churches, mosques, temples, insert your place of worship here_________, to find purpose, to connect with others, and to understand the Creator. They also want insurance for the inevitable.
One day, our bodies will die. The world we know will perish, and our souls will make a spiritual transition.
When I think about my last message, I often think about how I live. Every day I pray, read scriptures, write, exercise, work, and pour love into my family.
We add a sentence to our last words with the choices and actions we take every 24 hours.
Contemplating death also conjures images of Christ’s final words.
As Christ died nailed to the Roman symbol of power, he left words to humankind.
Luke 23:34 reads, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Christ's words preach the importance of love, courage, and sacrifice during the most tumultuous times.
I acknowledge how the right has weaponized Christianity against diversity and manipulated precepts to justify oppression. And, although I’ve strayed from my strict childhood religious practices, some elements remain relevant to how I see God.
Whenever my name is mentioned after my spirit transitions, I hope love and sacrifice are among the words people use to describe my actions.
I...
1. invest in time, resources, and activities that promote physical, mental, and spiritual health
2. honor familial responsibilities
3. learn from life’s struggles
4. identify the love causes behind justice movements
5. give time and energy to the community
6. practice the craft of writing
7. surround myself with positive peers
8. make BOLD decisions
9. share truths
10. recognize shortcomings in every endeavor and work with intentionality to improve.
In the Ten Commandments (biblical laws), the forty-two laws of Maat (ancient Kemetic principles), and the seven Kwanzaa principles or Nguzo Saba (African diasporic cultural values), you will find the spiritual and cultural guidelines that shape how I live. They inform my thoughts, values, actions and the messages shared to this site's 440 blog posts.
Pause again, reflect on the highs and lows of this year.
Ask yourself these three questions:
What worked?
What failed?
What can you improve, expand, or minimize?
Will this be my last post? Subscribe to find out in 2026 and explore more messages through books and coaching services. Happy Holidays! - V