I was going through some writer's block last night and decided that cleaning my writing space would help. Nothing like a decluttering exercise to help clear one's mind. I started with clearing out some bank statements when I came across an old bank portfolio statement. "Just another piece of paperwork," I thought to myself, but as I picked it up to put in my "documents to shred" pile, my eyes landed on a phrase that stopped me in my tracks:
Next of Kin: None.
Two simple words. Unremarkable to most. But to me, they carried the weight of a life—my life. A truth I’ve painfully known now for 4 years, yet seeing it in black and white made it more definite. So plainly written, like it was just another box my accountant had to check off. Just another detail for the client. There it was, a truth staring back at me so officially, so finally. No children to carry my name, my stories, my echoes into the future. No direct lineage. No one born from my body, my blood, my soul to carry my legacy forward when I am gone.
I have accepted this fact. Or so I thought. In that moment, however, it felt like a knife in my heart, reopening a wound that has been trying to heal for some time.
But seeing it written there, in bureaucratic ink, felt like a verdict. Like life itself had cancelled me. Like the sum of my existence had been distilled down to an empty space where a name should be. A name I will never give. A child I will never hold. A future I will never watch unfold through the eyes of someone who carries my blood.
I could have let that moment spiral me into grief. I could have unraveled, sunk into the sorrow of it, let it take me under. And maybe a past version of me would have. But instead, I just stood there, absorbing it. Feeling it. Acknowledging it. And then asking myself:
Does “none” mean nothing?
Because maybe legacy isn’t only about bloodlines. Maybe it’s in the words we write, the hearts we touch, the love we give. Maybe it’s in the way we make people feel, the stories we leave behind, the small ripples we create in the world that extend far beyond our own existence.
Maybe “next of kin” isn’t just a name on a form. Maybe it’s every soul I’ve ever impacted. Every friend who has called me family. Every stranger who has felt seen in my words. Maybe it’s the way I’ve fought to survive, to love, to create, despite everything that’s tried to break me.
So no, I don’t have children, and that's not an easy thing for me. It never will be. But I have left pieces of myself. In kindness. In words. In the people who have known me. Something that I will continue to do everyday. And if that’s not legacy, I'm not sure what is.
Because none does not mean nothing. It just means something different.
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