Where have all my mentors gone?

By Shin Freedman

Renewal is in order now that we're in a new year. We have just passed through a historically, politically and medically monumental year. The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel is not yet visible. The new Omicron variant presents us with a new threat of high transmissibility. Our expectations of “a new normalcy” are unsure in schools and on the home front, not to mention in business. Will we ever be able to resume “normalcy”? Will we even be able to recognize the new normal life when we get there? What would the world be like around us without masks, hand sanitizers, COVID-19 vaccinations, boosters and frequent testing?

On one quiet January morning of this new year, I am recalling certain people important to me. They are mostly my teachers. I remember Miss Lee, my second grade teacher, and Miss Oh, my third grade teacher. I also remember clearly, Professor Chon, then-English Department chair, and Dean Chon, who teased me by saying that I would do better in America. There was my first boss, Mr. Ahn, who told me that I would be a woman who would do something big someday. Then, there was Professor Kim, who was the hiking club advisor of my college.

Do I remember them because they had done something special, or for something that they said to me, or for their kind and caring faces? I don't recall anything Miss Lee said to me, but I remember the second grade play rehearsal in which I played the role of the wizard who made everything okay. At the end of the school term, a group of us went with her to a photo studio and took a picture. I still have that picture. I remember Professor Chon ― who had unusually curly hair for a Korean man, and spectacles ― for his generosity in lending me money from his salary to pay for a part of my college tuition upon learning that I was about to quit the college, because I had not gotten a scholarship for that semester. Dean Chon, who scolded us as his college students for “laughing too loud,” and the fact that we “dressed like French soldiers” at the time, as mid-length winter coats had become popular. I recall Professor Kim, who accompanied us on hiking trips to nearby mountains and trails, and who always brought spicy cod soup ingredients in his backpack. He let us, the students, share his trail meal. Carefully packed by Professor Kim's wife, the soup was inhaled by us as soon as it was boiling over a hiking stove and ready to eat.

I would not be who I am now without these caring people who teased me, persuaded me to become “someone,” or “someone big,” who saw something in me ― a diamond in the rough. These are the people who helped shape me, who saved me from dropping out of college, who encouraged me to be who I am, whose interest in hiking I adopted as my lifetime hobby.

As a senior citizen myself, I wonder where they are now. Probably they have departed this world; yet, their legacies ― the conversations and their meanings ― are vivid to me. They were my mentors who guided me.

When normalcy returns, I hope to resume my trail hiking, and make my own spicy cod soup. I hope to reach out to my students in times of crisis due to Omicron or in trying academic situations as Professor Chon did for me. I'd like to follow up on my “something big project” by collecting grant money for teachers. I wish to check back whether I still have the magic potion to spread to those who may be in need, as I did in the second grade. Most of all, I would like to check up on my mentees to see if they are okay. I wish to pay forward the legacy of my mentors as this new year unfolds; this is my New Year's resolution.

Shin Freedman (shinfreed@gmail.com) is the author of "Accidental American."