As I was driving I-90 home from my red eye flight just after 7 am last Thursday, I smiled passing the sign for Irene Road. Most people driving this highway don’t even notice the exit. There are no gas stations or fast food windows. No reason to stop unless you’re heading toward one of the farms or the dog kennel on the other side of the bridge. But this road is named after a famous person. 

When I met my girlfriend’s dad, we were just visiting Rockford. He drove us to the airport (and still does almost every time we travel - he’s awesome like that). On one of those first drives, he told me that Irene Road was named after his mom. I believed him for a minute. I am just gullible enough to go along with pretty much anything before my brain catches up. Once he was convinced I believed him, he laughed and told me the real story. 

Many years ago when this exit was added to the highway, his father told him that the road was named after his mom, Irene. His father worked on the road and told his son that one day on his way home, a man with a clip board walked up to the car. He asked what they should name the road. In his undying love for his wife, his dad said, “Irene.”  For many years after and well past the age where most kids would question it (according to him), he genuinely believed it was named after his mom. That’s when his dad let him know about the ruse. I have thought of her and that moment fondly every time I pass this particular exit. 

I wonder what age is old enough to realize the people we love aren’t significant enough to be heralded and remembered by street names. What behavior or maturity makes us think of them in a different way. Maybe we don’t need to distinguish their significance no matter how old we are. 

See, whoever the person is that inspired this road’s name officially is no one to me. My Irene is ever present in my home. She is on the shelves in the wooden mushroom collection she passed on, in the big silver pot we only use to make her Latvian cheese recipe, and the bright blue eyes I see at our family’s holiday gatherings. She is significant to me. More important than the methodology we use to name bridges and roads or to inspire parades, she meets the highest bar of significance. She made my love possible. 

So from today on, I’ve decided this road is named after my Irene. I’m going to name everything after people I love. What better way to remember the people who loved me so hard it changed me? I’ll let myself believe that the world and I are on the same page in acknowledging just how significant that is.