FRANKLIN, Ind. — A Franklin teenager just created a new Indiana memorial to remember the losses and legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It's set to be dedicated at the end of the month, and it will include a time capsule with letters from the community.
That's where Braiddinn Plymate needs your help — finishing off his meaningful Eagle Scout project.
The memorial sits along Young's Creek in downtown Franklin, at the corner of Home Avenue and Wayne Street.
It's a serene space, a quiet spot to reflect on a chaotic time when fear, loss and COVID-19 dominated our days.
Anita Ward goes there often.
"This is my place," Ward said. "It's peaceful here. It's beautiful. So many loved ones, their hearts are right there."
The memorial includes Ward's older brother and sister-in-law, who like tens of thousands of Hoosiers, lost their lives to the virus.
"There's Don's brick," Ward pointed out at the memorial. "It says, 'in honor of Don Sickles,' and over here, it says, 'in honor of Lynne Sickles.'"
Ward has a high schooler to thank for the Indiana COVID-Era Memorial.
"I am so grateful to Braiddinn," Ward said. "That darling Braiddinn gave me something."
For his Eagle Scout project, Franklin Community High School senior Braiddinn Plymate scouted out the setting, earned city leaders' approval and designed the tribute.
"This is the biggest event that's happened in my generation's life," Plymate said of the pandemic. "So, I felt like we need somewhere to remember, grieve and find a little hope."
He said each element in the design has purpose.
Three benches represent first responders, essential workers and the fallen.
Donated bricks line a memorial walkway, leading to the benches.
Some include names of loved ones who died. Others were donated by local fire departments or schools.
All of the bricks paid for the memorial's construction.
Plymate said he was inspired to create this by a family member who fought the pandemic on the frontlines.
"Watching your grandmother walk into the line of fire every day to go be a nurse at Johnson Memorial Hospital, working on a COVID ward at 65 years old is scary. Watching her come home crying because there's a 19-year-old patient that suffocated to death from pneumonia...is terrible," Plymate said. "That's the entire point of this project. It's to capture what society was like during that time — the good, bad and the evil."
Now, he wants to capture your story.
Plymate is asking for letters from the community about people's pandemic experience for a time capsule.
It'll be buried behind the benches and then unearthed in 50 years.
No surprise, one of the first letters he received came from Ward.
"My husband and I tried to do everything right," Ward's letter started. "We mostly stayed home. When masks were recommended, I made masks. As the recommendations from the scientists came and went, we followed what they said."
She shared not only what life was like in 2020, 2021 and 2022, but also the gut-wrenching reality of a COVID death.
Her family experienced two, back-to-back.
"Too much damage had been done to Don's organs," Ward's letter reads. "Lynne was taken off the ventilator less than 24 hours later. Neither would have wanted to go on without the other."
Ward made sure the bricks honoring Don and Lynne were placed next to each other.
Always near.
Just like they always were.
At the memorial, Ward can visit, pray and reflect on their lives.
She said Plymate's project has given her peace, after the pandemic took so much.
"I was feeling so lost, and I was feeling so angry. Braiddinn has definitely given me a peace," Ward said. "I didn't realize how much I needed it until I got it."
Plymate is collecting letters from the community right now for the time capsule, which is set to be buried on June 1 at 11 a.m.
That follows a ribbon-cutting at the memorial at 3 p.m. May 31.
If you'd like to write a letter and have it included, you can drop it off or send it to:
- Eagle Scout Project
Braiddinn Plymate
25 N. Main St.
Franklin, IN 46131