Nobody liked him. Or enjoyed his class. They would grumble, complain, dread those 55 mins. I remember the first time I piped up. "I enjoy his class." My friends, all six of them, immediately halted their words, and slowly turned their heads, eyes bulging with jaws dropped. "What?" I responded. My freshman year I chose to take the Freshman Honors Biology Class, not because I particularly liked science, but because honors was the expectation for me. I sat in the plastic blue chair, and my brand new teacher, Mr. Owens, handed me a pre-test. I stared down at the paper, dumfounded at the odd shapes and diagrams printed onto the page. I glared at the weird, plus sign looking things, that seemed to be floating and flying amidst a bunch of circles. I was stumped. For the first time in my life, I had no idea what I was looking at; and for the first time in a loooong time, I was curious. Mr. Owens talked. That was his way of teaching, he lectured. The real clincher though? The moment that I truly appreciated Mr Owens? He told a joke, something that was so far from hilarious and so much closer to disturbing, that it has been ingrained in my mind for the past four years. There he stood, at the front of the class, my 45-ish year old science teacher, a retired basketball coach, when he stopped right in the middle of a lesson. He paused, looked around and asked "You guys know that humans can get parasites too, right?" Confused, we nodded and murmured agreements. "Well," he said. "Back before modern medicine, they would starve people if they were suspected to have parasites. Then after two weeks of no food and minimal water, they would set a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup right in front of the starved." He paused there, and looked me dead in the eyes and asked me if I knew why. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. "The person would open their mouths, right over the hot broth, and after two week of famine, the parasites would be hungry, and they would climb right up out of the stomach and worm right out of the people's mouths." Safe to say that I've never forgotten that. He taught my class about the basic biological concepts, but I was stunned. I had no idea that life, even life that we think to be simple, like a blade of grass, was so extremely complex and wonderful. He opened my eyes to the microscopic world beneath our fingertips, far out of reach from our sight. Mr. Owens helped me discover and cultivate an extreme curiosity and love for science, and that passion has driven me to study Molecular Biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Freshman year came to a close; I knew my way around the halls, the lunch schedules memorized, and all exams taken, minus one. I plopped down into that familiar plastic chair for the last time, and Mr. Owens handed me our exam. I stared down at the paper, elated at the familiar shapes and the diagram, which I recognized as DNA Transcription and DNA translation. I easily labeled the plus sign shapes as tRNA molecules, carrying amino acids over to the ribosomal RNA. After the test, I felt a sense of wonder and satisfaction. I walked outside and no longer saw a lawn, but rather individual organisms fighting and constantly working to keep this precious force we label "life". All thanks to Mr Owens.

A letter I wrote to my mother that I never sent, six and a half years after our last hug. Dear mom, I used to cry. I used to cry so much that I just knew my pillow could feel my sorrow. I would spend my night rebuilding my life in my head, believing I did things I’ve never done, bringing people back into my life that weren’t actually there. I’ve spent countless nights wishing and praying and hoping that you’d experience an epiphany and realize that the void you’ve been trying to fill has all been in vain and that you’d come back. I’ve wasted so many moments imagining your embrace and the warmth of it. I’ve dreamed of my future milestones and forced your image beside me. But after wishing and hoping for so long and nothing happening, someone begins to realize something. Personally, I realized that you didn’t care. You had never made an attempt for me. So why should I hold out for you? You didn’t want me and never gave me a thought unless your mind was muddled and your thoughts entwined and tangled. So why should I waste a thought on you? I have people that love me, I don’t need you. I spent a long time thinking this way, feeling this way. Rage and frustration taking the place of my longing and grief. Now, I realize that you didn’t have much control. You were a prisoner in your own skin, an intruder in your own mind. I used to believe that there was a little part of you that knew what you were doing was wrong. That what you were consuming wasn’t helping you and that you loved me. I don’t think that anymore. I believe that you’re gone. Any memory I have of you smiling, laughing, and loving me is something I hold close and dear to me, but I’m wise enough to know that through your continuous addiction, the woman I loved and admired is gone. You brought me into this world but allowed me to be ripped away from yours. I remember how smart you were whenever you weren’t stumbling around our filthy kitchen, scraping for a fight. To think that your obsessive addiction, your ruined life, my stained childhood, was just a result of some entropic gene occurrence angers me. The idea that you were just a victim of a molecular accident lights a fire that frightens even me, that drives me to want to abolish that concept. Your tragic gene expression instilled a spark in me to study epigenetics to ensure that no nine year old girl has to drag her drunken mother back to their shabby duplex ever again. I need to eradicate the idea that young, beautiful people like you can be mutilated by the random entropy of the universe and our anatomy. Mom, you’ve been gone for years, but only recently have I found an unwavering grace that has allowed me to forgive you. Despite the screaming, the frustration, the daggered insults, the bodily harm, the cold, the filth, and the aching absence of you, I want you to know that it’s okay. I forgive you, and I want you to know that I don’t cry anymore.