Institutions keep archives. Families keep albums.
The difference is not technical. It is emotional. An archive is exhaustive, neutral, and indexed for retrieval. An album is selective, warm, and assembled for the people who will turn its pages.
Most legacy documentation is archived. Letters of wishes. Memoranda of intent. Side-letters to trustees. Every advisor produces them. Few of them are ever read by the people they were written for.
The Sealed Memo™ is composed differently. It is short. It is signed. It is bound. It is meant to be opened — not archived. It assumes that one day, in a quiet room, a family member will sit down with it and read it the way one reads a letter from a parent.
One principal, looking at his completed Sealed Memo, said: 'It is not the longest document I have signed. It may be the most important.'
Composure, in legacy work, is the discipline of writing for the reader who will eventually exist — not for the institution that will eventually file.
If you would like to compose something that will be read, rather than filed, Legatus™ provides the form. By invitation.
