On Legacy
To the imprints that we leave behind.
I am at work, and I look around me, and work is running smoothly today—even with Paul’s absence. And I can’t help but ask myself, with Paul’s departure, how has the transition of the factory into normalcy been?
And I can’t help but answer it—
nothing has really changed.
I asked Jordan a similar question, and he echoed the same response to me, that everything is exactly the same as it was before Paul arrived and worked here.
And I sit with this thought for a moment.
And I realise—
it frightens me.
It makes me wonder how someone can just come,
be present,
and leave—
and be forgotten so easily.
And I suppose it touches a nerve in me,
because that’s my biggest fear, isn’t it?
To be forgotten.
To be a blip in someone’s world.
To not leave some sort of legacy behind.
And I think to myself—why is this the case with Paul?
Why, a week after he left,
no one mentions his name,
no one even felt that something was missing in the factory?
Was it because he didn’t connect with people?
Was it because he wasn’t loud enough to draw attention?
He was always someone that kept to himself.
That worked really hard.
That smiled just enough to say the right things, to get by.
But I guess—he never really touched our lives in the same way that family does,
or our closest friends do.
I’ve been telling people at work my dreams for the future,
about becoming a personal trainer on a cruise ship,
and that one day,
I will leave Michelin behind me.
And most reactions?
Sadness.
And it makes me feel happy.
Because it means that I will be missed.
That my presence will be felt long after I step foot out of the factory.
And I hope—
I really do—
that my legacy is big enough
to be felt
for many years afterwards.
Edited by Philip
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