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How do you keep alive the memory of a great man when it was him, not you, who was the expert at preserving things? That will be the question on my mind for some time, after my dear friend Mark Rodman passed away at age 56 while attempting to recover from a battle with cancer.
In recent months, I have routinely walked past a park bench that serves as a memorial to someone who passed away. Lately, that bench keeps sticking in my mind.
While I understand and appreciate the thought behind those types of memorials, it bears a name and nothing more. I don’t know anything about the person it honors, and I need Mark’s legacy to be more than a name on a seat somewhere.
No, the best way I know how to preserve something is through story, so I’d like to tell some of Mark’s, who was Michigan’s state historic preservation officer at the time of his death. It was a dream job for Mark, who spent his career focused on preserving buildings, areas and other items of historical significance.
While Mark was a South Carolina native who never had a direct connection to Cherokee County as far as I know, he did much for North Carolina during more than a decade that he spent living in this state. That included a two-year stint as chief operating officer of Preservation North Carolina, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to preserving history.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting a lot of interesting people in life, particularly in my line of work, and Mark was easily one of the most unique, fun, energetic, intelligent, hard-working, kind and gentle people the world could ever ask for. He was a bit like Mr. Rogers, if Mr. Rogers also had a snarky sense of humor.
It was impossible not to have a good time whenever you were with Mark, in part because he was so knowledgeable about the history of an area and its current offerings. No matter where you were, he knew all the coolest places to visit and best things to do. More importantly, he was someone who looked out for and constantly encouraged the people he cared about – I was just incredibly fortunate to be one of them for the past decade or so.
Mark had an equally big heart for animals. He once happened upon a pet adoption fair where he heard the story of a cat that had been abandoned by its owners. He returned a few hours later to get said kitty, only to find that the fair had wrapped up early.
Mark eventually tracked that cat down across Denver and adopted Mowgli because, well, that was Mark. Whether he was trying to give an aging cat a good home or attempting to save a historic building, the man was nothing if not persistent.
He was also incredibly resilient. Several years ago, Mark went through a series of weeks in which he had a mild stroke, had his home burglarized and totaled his beloved Jeep Liberty by hitting a pronghorn – a Colorado antelope – while attempting to take friends on a rafting trip. I once told him that he was the only person I knew who had worse luck than me.
It is, then, an especially bitter pill to swallow that the universe dealt him one last really bad hand. His cancer had a 75-80 percent survivability rate, but after months of repeated bacterial infections and catastrophic weight loss, Mark’s body was too weak to recover.
Mark continued working the entire time he was sick and even helped successfully re-establish Michigan’s Historic Tax Credit program, which had been eliminated 11 years earlier. That new program officially launched at 9 a.m. June 15.
Mark Alexander Rodman died just a few hours later.
I hope a day comes when I’m able to fully embrace that eerie timing as some kind of sign that this was all part of God’s plan and that Mark’s work on Earth was finished.
In the meantime, I take consolation in the fact that Mark genuinely accomplished more in his 56 years on the planet than most of us could probably get done in two or three lifetimes. He was a one-man force for good, which makes it a daunting task to think about trying to fill even a fraction of the gap left by his passing.
Still, I know Mark’s death won’t be anything close to the final word on his legacy. He mentored and inspired countless individuals to follow in his footsteps, not just in the realm of historic preservation but, more importantly, to try to live life as the kind of person he was.
And that is my biggest takeaway. It’s up to me and all the other people who knew and loved him to mimic his kindness, support historic preservation efforts and promote the many worthwhile causes that were near and dear to his heart.
As for my friend, I hope heaven is real. If so, Mark surely is there right now, happy, at peace and enjoying an infinite number of new locations to explore. I hope I make it there one day, too, only to be greeted by his typical “Hey dude!” – followed by some snarky comment about him having to wait too long for me to arrive.
There would be no one better than Mark to take me on a long tour of the place, explaining its rich history and showing me all the coolest sites that heaven has to offer.
Jared Putnam is editor of the Cherokee Scout. You can call him at 837-5122, Ext. 24; or email editor@
cherokeescout.com.