I am forgotten

Sad, emotional thoughts running through my head.  

The future grabs me by the neck  

And forces me to think ahead.  

Will it be bright or a wreck?  

How long until my body is found dead?  

The things I do will be forgotten;  

I consider myself kind,  

Especially compared to people I know who are rotten.  

So I look ahead to my future,  

To see what I can find,  

A glimmer of hope, a sprinkle of joy,  

Father to a young girl and boy?  

Will I be happily married,  

Or will I divorce like my parents and grandparents?  

Will I find myself standing where my family is buried,  

Crying, sobbing over their forgotten accomplishments?  

My children... I will raise them, but they will leave,  

And hopefully, unlike my father, I will stay connected,  

But even then, they'll have their own lives, and I will be rejected.  

And so on a cold winter's eve,  

I'll lay one last time to sleep.  

I will leave my wife and children and go for eternity.  

Even through all this, I lay here and weep,  

For I will not be me, just a simple memory.  

Slowly, as time goes, my kids will join me,  

And all the others who kept me as a memory.  

Time will pass, and forgotten we will be,  

I will just be a name in the large family tree.  

My descendants will stare at my picture  

And not know who I am,  

For all I've ever done will be lost in a strange mixture  

Of family folk tales and mistaken spam.  

Can I make it so they remember me,  

As I try to remember my ancestors through genealogy?