In Memoriam
I’m sure many of us will never have our names hung over a bridge or plastered to the side of a hospital or university, much less merit a mention in a newspaper for being just who we are. The notoriety of throwing large amounts of cash into the widening maw of society is more likely to show itself in a tweet (ref. Mark Cuban’s tax payments for FY2023, as an example) than it is etched into stone. Our version of memorializing contributions is transient at best and, at worst, highly reductionistic.
The day and age of what you see above, that incredibly etched piece of forged iron hung over a bridge in nowhere Massachusetts, has long gone. Our approach is to sheer the names of former donors off the front of our edifices to be replaced with the next shiny testament to mendaciousness. Our memories are like the goldfish’s: transient and prone to the next social distraction flitting across our screens or windshields. And yet, we have a deep-seated love of history, especially concerning our Industrial Revolution — two seemingly dichotomous positions to have.
This bridge is ordinary, spanning Millers River in northcentral Massachusetts’s heart. It requires little to be discovered, and it’s weathered the hundred-plus years of its existence in good condition. I’m sure there have been various retrofitting and refurbishments as the rotting boards spanning its length show signs of general use. As an artefact of a bygone era, it’s something to behold, iron and paint alternating in presentation and patina to provide a statement of worn acceptance of time’s relentless march.
I love finding these small testaments to humanity’s progress, insignificant as they may be. We have millennia of bridges to look back upon; in some cases, they’ve persisted longer than our modern architectures could have predicted. That we’re a travelling people, prone to journey by plane, train, and automobile, is an affordance made possible by the work of folks from bridge designers like Dean & Westbrook from New York. They are worthy of what little permanent testament we can offer them, even if it is hung high on the crossbeams of a bridge.
As I close this next part of my professional journey, I think a lot about these memorials. I recently wrote a resignation letter (of sorts) explaining the need to find a different kind of fulfilment that didn’t revolve around a soulless oligarchy. Similarly, when I leave this current employer, I wonder what I’ll actually leave to signify my existence.
I’m sure my mark has been made indelibly in those places where content needed to be created and in the minds of a few chosen people I had the pleasure to work with over the years. Perhaps, to them, I’m an architect designing bridges for them to cross over. Making a dent in a 100,000+ member organization is fraught with all the issues a grain of sand finds at the oceanside, but there’s at least some evidence I was there.
There’s also an air of excitement in what comes next, regardless of what it is. There’s a bit of terror in the changing of seasons, the stepping into the unknown and the new environments that need to be pushed through to discover what mettle I’m made of for this next part of my life. There are new bridges to design, new architectures to explore, and new relationships to be forged, and when it’s all said and done, there are more choices to make than ever before.
There’ll be a slight pause as I head off to Nova Scotia for the balance of this week and some time with Emma, uncomplicated with the fettling about of work and other such nonsense. It’s a privilege to escape for the briefest moments and to gird myself up for this change, and I’m genuinely grateful for the opportunity.
I suppose, in all of this, there’s a need to remind all of us that the legacy we leave, in our employment as well as our life, need not be as fantastical as an endowment or building. Hell, even a street name is ostentatious enough in this day and age. No, I’m hoping we understand that regardless of how insignificant we may feel our contributions to society, we build bridges that enable others to move forward. We become the architects for future generations to prosper and grow, which is no mean feat, my dear souls.
May it ever be so.
