Chapter 20: I Was There and I Was Famous

         Being famous may seem glamorous and desirable. Facebook videos and Instagram photos clamber for likes and comments. Although this technology is relativity new, the desire to be remembered, to feel that your life counted for something, is not new. Yet, the vast majority of people who have lived on this planet never became famous, in the usual way of thinking. As President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Most children grow up to be just ordinary people.” After a handful of decades, all that remains for ninety-nine percent is perhaps a brief biography on Ancestry.com and a cement marker with fading dates on a cemetery hillside.
          Marcy Heisler poetically expressed the universal desire to be remembered:

Let me grow old; let me grow wise;
Let lines of laughter crease my eyes.
Let me spin stories as I rock forth in my chair.
Let me knit yards and yards of yesterdays to gather round my knees,
And woven in the pattern is a message: “I was there.”

          In the movie, Coco, twelve-year-old Miguel accidentally visits the land of the dead. He discovers the dead are the same people they were in life, that even though they don’t have their physical bodies, they maintain their personalities, memories, and relationships. He comes to understand the importance of the living remembering the dead because the dead want to know their lives counted for something, that “I was there.” As a subplot, the movie shows that the goal to be famous can be problematic in the afterlife.
          Naomi Shihab Nye wrote, “Famous,” a poem that shows how to make your life matter by being famous.

The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence…
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets, sticky children in grocery lines, famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.

          Magazines in doctors’ offices picture famous people by worldly standards. Name recognition is immediate of CEOs and movie stars who are splashed on covers and throughout the colorful pages. Who is the richest? Who wears what? Who owns what? Who drives what? Who gives the most to charity? Who was seen with whom? Aggressive competition seems to be the way up any corporate ladder, to get on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or the only way to prove “I was famous. I was there.” Truly, however, you may be only as famous as the fish is to the river.
          On January 10, 2016, Lloyd Newell gave a refreshing look at what it means to be famous as part of the Tabernacle Choir broadcast. Brother Newell spoke about the pressures to succeed that can lead to becoming “aggressive, dominating, and overpowering.” He said the fiercely competitive may become ruthless. He suggested a better to succeed, a sure way to truly find success, is to choose to live with humility.
          He said some large corporations that formerly hired the hard-hitting, super self-confident types are now beginning “to prize humble leaders over the brash, overbearing kind.
          “Humble leaders, according to ‘The Case for Humble Executives’ in  The Wall Street Journal, ‘listen well, admit mistakes, and share the limelight.’ They have helping hearts; they encourage teamwork and promote collaboration. They see themselves not as kings who issue orders but as coworkers in a worthwhile endeavor. Humble leaders see themselves authentically, with both strengths and weaknesses, and they recognize that leading others and serving them are not mutually exclusive efforts. One can be visionary and relentless, with the mind of a leader, and still be humble and teachable, with the heart of a servant.”
          The true bottom-line of fame measures sincerity, modesty, and does not keep score. You can be famous to a three-year-old or a ninety-six year old. That is how persons who smile at sticky children in grocery lines are truly famous. That is how nursery leaders in the Primary are famous. That is how the person who shovels the snowy walks at the church is famous. That is how the families who clean the ward are famous. That is how the Aaronic Priesthood young men are famous to the ill or elderly to whom they take the sacrament. That is how you are famous to your family for whom you work long hours to bring home a paycheck. That is how you are famous to the people for whom you do laundry or for whom you make a sandwich.
          You may never do anything to make the Guinness Book of World Records. Rather like the buttonhole you will just do your job. It’s the yards and yards of memories you are weaving in others’ hearts that assure you that you will be remembered.

(c) Marilynne Todd Linford, 2018