Ed Darlington

Beyond the Bridge Ed Darlington

Beyond the Bridge is Leda and Ed Darlington's shared memoir of two people who grew up in very different cultures and yet experienced life events that somehow made them attractive and sympathetic to each other. Ed Darlington always had an affinity with words and wanted a career in journalism, but the universe had other plans. Drafted fresh out of high school in Butte, Montana, toward the end of World War II, he was an infantry rifleman in the "second wave" assault on Okinawa in the spring of 1945. After the war, he went to college on the GI Bill, but all the journalism slots were taken, so he ended up with dual undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration in 1952 and later went to work for Boeing in the Puget Sound region. Leda immigrated to the United States in 1950 at the age of fifteen. While living in foster care in Bremerton, Washington, she completed a high school education and then went on to earn a living as a comptometer operator. In 1960, she met Ed Darlington on a Mountaineer's Club ski outing at Mount Baker. Their subsequent marriage and life together are outlined here-punctuated by joy and hope as well as struggle and sorrow. As does Leda Darlington's earlier memoir Silence on the Bridge, Beyond the Bridge calls us to realize that every moment is precious and each person we meet has a place in our lives; our time here is so fleeting, and sometimes things we care about and those we love can disappear before we have a chance to understand just how important they are to us. Ed died in 2015. This book is partly about Leda's struggle to come to terms with the loss of her beloved spouse.