Legacy in Texas

They’ll put nice words on the stone, that part’s arranged,
somebody’ll say you were decent and the weather will be strange.
But legacy ain’t the eulogy or the flowers by the gate —
it’s the fence you never fixed that your son is fixing late.

It’s the note you didn’t leave and the debt you didn’t say,
it’s the field you promised somebody you’d sort out someday.
Legacy in Texas is the morning after you are gone
when everybody’s standing in the yard trying to carry on.

My granddaddy left a handshake deal on forty acres west,
three cousins and a lawyer been unraveling his bequest
for going on eleven years and nobody’s close to done —
that’s legacy in Texas, son, that’s how it’s always won.

The good ones leave a tractor that still runs and a paid note,
a wife who knows the pasture map and a well that doesn’t choke.
The hard ones leave a mystery wrapped inside a deed,
and everybody loved them but nobody can agree.

It ain’t what you said at supper or the stories at the feed store,
it’s whether the roof holds after you ain’t here no more.
It’s the way your kids talk to each other when the will gets read —
that’s the truest thing about a man, and it waits till he’s dead.

So I’m trying to leave things cleaner than I found them on this land,
pay what’s owed, say what matters, and shake every honest hand.
Because legacy ain’t what you said — that part I know for sure —
it’s what folks are still dealin’ with long after you locked the door.

Legacy in Texas ain’t what you said… it’s what folks are still dealin’ with after you’re gone.

I’m Alan Nafzger. Appreciate ya!

Last Updated on April 11, 2026 by Alan Nafzger