What does legacy mean?

What does legacy mean? On grief that stays, and the lives we continue to build alongside it

It’s a word we often save for the end of a life. For what (physically) is left behind. For what remains when someone is no longer here. But I’ve been sitting with it differently. Because grief has a way of changing the meaning of words. Stretching them. Softening them. Sometimes breaking them open entirely. And what I’ve come to understand is this:

LEGACY IS NOT JUST WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND. IT’S WHAT CONTINUES.

On the 28th of April 2024, my fiancé, Cleve, died.

In those early days, grief was not something I carried – it was something that carried me. Heavy. Disorienting. Unrelenting. And it SUCKED!!!!

It was the kind of sadness that sits in your chest and refuses to be moved. The kind that changes how the world sounds, how it feels, how you move through it. And if I’m honest… that sadness hasn’t gone.

It has changed shape. It has softened at the edges. But it is still here.

GRIEF DOESN’T LEAVE. IT CHANGES SHAPE… AND LEARNS HOW TO LIVE ALONGSIDE YOU.

There is a truth I have had to learn how to hold, the life I am living now is a life we once spoke about together. And although I’m sad that he is no longer with me in person, his absence is part of what makes that possible.

Even writing that feels complicated. Because it holds two things at once:

A deep, unending loss…

and a quiet, unexpected gift.

Not a gift I would have chosen. But one I recognise, and hold with care.

THE LIFE I AM LIVING NOW… IS A LIFE WE ONCE SPOKE ABOUT TOGETHER.

This weekend, I returned to West London Leaders Academy (WYLA). Something about being there made this idea of legacy feel real in a way words alone never could.

I met the pupils.

I sat in their classrooms.

I listened.

There was a 17-year-old standing at the front of the room, delivering a presentation to his peers (this is something I could not have done at his age and I know many adult who still couldn’t). He spoke about study tips. About discipline. About the importance of sleep. About showing up for yourself. And there was a moment where he paused and spoke with a kind of quiet certainty. Not just repeating something he’d been told… but something he was beginning to understand for himself. And in that moment, I felt it. The roots forming. Taking shape. You could see it.

And alongside that I felt something else…

A quiet sense of honour.

That I am in a position to give in a way that allows moments like this to exist and to continue.

THIS IS HOW LEGACY LIVES.
NOT IN GRAND GESTURES.
BUT IN MOMENTS LIKE THIS.

That day showed me that legacy isn’t something distant or abstract. It’s right there in the room. In what is being shared. In what is being learned. In what is being passed on.

Cleve believed in what WYLA stands for. He believed in creating spaces where young people (the younger black generation) could grow, be seen, and be supported in becoming who they are. And sitting there, watching those students, I could feel that belief, still alive. Still doing what it was always meant to do.

LEGACY ISN’T SOMETHING DISTANT OR ABSTRACT. IT’S HAPPENING, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.

My presence there now, my support, the way I continue to show up for that space in his name It’s not about obligation. IT’S LOVE, IN MOTION.

And I see it in my own work too.

In the spaces I hold for women without children.

In the conversations that are often left unspoken.

In the grief that doesn’t always have language but is deeply felt.

The work I do, the life I am building, carries him in ways that are quiet, but undeniable.

LEGACY IS LOVE, IN MOTION.

Legacy is not what someone leaves behind. It’s what continues to live, breathe, and grow in the lives they touched.

In the choices we make.

In the spaces we hold.

In the ways we keep going.

I see it in the gift he gave m, a gift that now allows me to give to others in ways I wouldn’t have been able to do without him, in ways that may not look traditional, but are no less acts of love.

SOME GIFTS ARE NOT CHOSEN… BUT THEY ARE STILL HELD, AND PASSED ON.

If you’re reading this, I wonder what legacy means to you.

Not in the grand, distant sense. But in the small, everyday ways.

What are you carrying forward?

Whose presence still shapes how you move through the world?

And if something in this piece has stayed with you there is a place where that legacy is still being lived, every single day.

At WYLA, young people are being supported to grow, to lead, and to become – not just academically, but as whole individuals. It is a space that mattered deeply to Cleve. And one I continue to support in his name – especially as a woman who was unable to have children of her own, yet who has found ways to embrace the lives she is still able to nurture.

If something in this has stayed with you, then you’ve already stepped into the kind of legacy that continues — the kind that lives through presence, attention, and what we choose to give. You can explore more about the work happening at West London Leaders Academy here: https://www.wylauk.com/

SOME LEGACIES ARE SPOKEN ABOUT.
OTHERS ARE LIVED.
AND SOMETIMES…
THEY ARE BOTH.