THE SCENTED HIGHLIGHTER

"Only the purple part still works. It was my least favorite color, but I think she liked it most."

Dr. Park had often told the seniors in my AP Biology class how much she looked forward to seeing us in our caps and gowns. I’d been part of her first 7th-grade science/math class at our small Jewish day school, and was a member of what would have been her first graduating class. She didn’t make it to graduation. She died the day of our last basketball game; a freshman told us in the locker room after the game ended. One player said she’d heard during halftime but didn’t want to break the news. Another laughed. Not a laugh laugh, but a You’re kidding, right? chuckle, as if to say Good one, freshie. I remember staring at the floor.

The first time I met the stout, gray-haired, wheelchair-bound lady, I could tell we wouldn't get along. She kept candy in a purple plastic Halloween-pumpkin bucket at the front of her lab table. To seventh-grade me, this was offensive; I was in the upper school, graduated from the days of candy bribes and standing single-file and asking permission to use the restroom. My dislike deepened when Dr. Park announced she was giving us fruit-scented highlighters. I definitely didn’t need more categorizing or cataloging. In her gift I saw a pedant forcing her pedantry on her prey.

Our relationship was as thorny as I expected. I often found myself in the principal’s office protesting points she’d deducted due to (obviously!) ambiguous questions and impossible, obscure standards. Her average quiz was six to eight pages, with multiple choice and short-answer and essay questions. I’d get to class ten minutes before lunch ended, to maximize time (and because walking in as the bell rang meant points off the quarterly grade). Fifty-four minutes later I’d walk out with a cramped hand and deflated ego. In an email, she once wrote, “True learning is my priority.” More like true torture, I scoffed.

She’d been a zoology major in college, a fact I enjoyed making fun of with my desk buddies in the back of the room. Dr. Park was simply a weirdo, we agreed. Her classroom—219—was Mary Poppins’ bottomless bag on steroids. She had Neosporin, Cheez-Its, pliers (marked with her signature rainbow duct tape), a lint roller, spare toothbrushes, a human skull we believed to be real, tampons and pads, kitchen utensils, a mini-fridge with ice in case of a bruise from lunchtime Wiffle ball. Dark winter mornings, her fan club of misfits and loners huddled in room 219 over chess and warm mugs of tea. To some students, she was home.

It took me a long time to understand that we—all of us—were her home, too.

Through stories Dr. Park shared, my friends and I eventually pieced together the outlines of a lonely, hard existence. Life was out to get her, it seemed—in the form of MS, car accidents, rheumatoid arthritis. And even beyond those blows, I came to believe she was born with a little bit of sad stuck in the back of her throat. I came to see that we had the kinship of the misunderstood. She was a cat lover in a dog-eat-dog world. I was a perfectionist in an imperfect world. I knew she longed, as I did, for a world with second chances. In this way we shared an understanding, a mutual respect for the hopeless cases who somehow persevere.

I had a hard time figuring out what to say at Dr. Park’s memorial service. I had no way to express what I’d come to see between the lines. Yes, I hated her guts. She was the bane of my existence, and the main obstacle between me and my valedictorian dream. But she was also dedicated and tenacious. And even I had to admit she was just: For better and certainly for worse, she had her principles and never once wavered from them. 

After Dr. Park died, the school guidance counselor (who seemed to have been her one true friend in the world) showed me the college recommendation letter my nemesis had written for me. She had sung my praises as if I were her ideal student. She had written on paper what she’d never said out loud. I wish I had a photo of her and my parents at graduation, all three beaming with pride at my yellow valedictorian cord. Instead, I have this highlighter. Only the purple part still works. It was my least favorite color, but I think Dr. Park liked it most. Even with its nauseatingly sweet grape scent, I have come to like it, too.

—Mina Schulman

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Mina Schulman is a sophomore studying finance at Touro University in New York. She hopes to attend law school. 

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