Legacy

When I met Mark he was a roofer. He had graduated with a degree in biology and had figured out that the next thing he would need is a degree in chemistry. Back in those days, a well-paying job like roofing would cover the cost of tuition, books, and living expenses for a good part of the year, but lord knows it is a hard job. Mark would sling 50# bags of shingles over his shoulder and haul them up a ladder all day long. He would work day after day in the summer heat and on winter weekends in the bitter cold. He fell off roofs and broke bones, he had hot tar slip down his work boots and give him a second degree burn on the top of his foot, he had a gun pulled on him multiple times. You would be hard pressed to find anyone waxing poetic about the life of a roofer, but those roofing days would shape who Mark would be as an adult. The guy hustled, and when he became a college professor and could have taken things down a notch or two, he never did. I used to tell him that the crazy thing about his white collar job was that he could take a day off and get paid for it. He never did and when he died his last check had 720 hours of unused vacation and sick time paid out.

Last year his boss announced that he would be retiring and the med center said that they would promote someone within the department to take over as chair. Mark got along well with his boss, and like anyone working under something that appeared to be running like a well-oiled machine, there was some concern about it being a cohesive transition. As those kinds of work situations go, there were camps assembled and loyalties split over who would be best at the position. After months of things being up in the air, his female coworker got named as department chair. Mark long championed for more women in science, and so having a woman in a leadership position at the med center seemed like a good thing for everybody, but there would be no coined phrase of workplace drama if everyone agreed.

At the end of June there was a retirement dinner for his boss, and as was typical of us we came flying in at the end of happy hour and were the last people to arrive. There was a short program with some gifts for Gerry and well wishes for his more relaxed new lifestyle and an invitation was extended for anyone to share some thoughts or memories. I leaned over to Mark and asked him if he was going to say something. He said he was going to take a pass, but before things wound down he did stand up and say he’d like to say a few things.

I had never seen Mark teach or heard him publicly speak. He was handed off the microphone and started out by saying how much everybody loved Gerry – the staff did, the faculty, the students. “The reason,” Mark said, “is that Gerry checked in on everyone. He made a point to stop you and ask you how things were going, what was new with your research, and how you were. He did what mattered.” He would go on to say, “That is our challenge now as faculty. To uphold Gerry’s legacy, to be sure to take care of one another and the students, to move us all forward, to support each other and to move as one.” For a guy who had no intention of speaking and had not rehearsed anything I was amazed.

When we were dating, Mark would drive me around and show me the places he’d roofed. He would tell me the pitch, the kind of shingles they put on, whether or not they would have to go back years later to figure out a leak and repair it. “You know what I love about roofing,” he would say. “I did that. I can drive by it years from now and it will still be there. I made something.”

He made processes in science that would also stand. A colleague from Israel sent me a note that said if a technique was done in Mark’s lab there was never a question of its integrity in replicating it in his own lab. “If Mark did it,” he wrote, “you knew the science was impeccable.”

That night when Mark spoke to his colleagues it was to remind them that it didn’t matter who their preference was leading up to that night, that there was a new leader on that floor and she deserved the best from each of them, that she deserved fairness and loyalty. That it was important to check in with each other, that even though your life may be burdened it is essential to be aware that you aren’t the only one carrying hurt and disappointment.

Most of Mark’s legacy is on the roofs of homes and businesses in the Chicago metro area and in labs around the world, but the rest is mine to carry. Over dessert and coffee and socializing at a table at a restaurant in Union Station, neither one of us would know that the tsunami of grief that was about to come would flow from every direction, and though never meant for me it is the echo of his words that I return to over and over.