The letter that changed everything
Early morning, September 14, 2014
Markie Pasternak’s alarm clock blared obnoxiously, urging her to wake up from her slumber. She turned, peered at the clock and the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. stared back at her. On a Sunday. With darkness surrounding her Campus Town East apartment, she quietly slipped out of bed.
It would be several hours before most of Markie’s 8,000 hibernating Marquette University undergrad classmates would finally rise and face the day.
But, not Markie.
She had work to do.
Like every Sunday morning when the Packers played at home, Markie packed up and jumped into her mom’s car. It was unseasonably warm — unlike most of her trips to the field often referred to as the frozen tundra. With her mom having a precious day off from her job cutting hair, it gave them both cherished spare hours to earn additional income.
Together, they began the two-and-a-half-hour commute to Lambeau Field on a day in which they would never step inside the stadium and see the actual field.
Instead, they stepped into their decade-long routine. It was a mother-daughter routine that started as a way to raise funds in support of Markie’s figure skating lessons as a kid years ago and now had a new, urgent cause — her college future.
They lifted their red wagon from the trunk and filled it with Packers gear, cowbells and swag. From parking lot to endless parking lot, Markie and her mom roamed among the tailgate parties.
And one sale at a time, they began paying off her college education.
It was towards the end of their Lambeau Field pilgrimage that Markie’s mom dropped the one- liner that would change everything.
“By the way, there is a letter that came to the house for you,” she said. “It is from Marquette.”
Six months earlier — March 16, 2014
Flash back 182 days before the Lambeau Field mobile store and Markie was relishing the final day of spring break — a welcome respite from the end of a challenging sophomore year at Marquette. While she savored every moment of her first two years, there was never an easy day. She was, after all, the first in her family to ever attend college.
Her father had planned to drop her off on campus, but he wasn’t feeling well. Markie is an only child — years earlier, a seventh grade counselor picked up on the close Pasternak family bond and called them the “three musketeers.” Now, after losing his job in the recession while Markie was in high school, her father had been sick for the last few years. Markie leaned in and hugged him goodbye.
Time to head back to Marquette and the campus that had become her sanctuary.
Back on campus, Markie was studying for her marketing class that same night when her phone started to explode.
Where are you? her friends asked repeatedly.
This is weird, she thought.
She called home and instantly heard the worry in her mother’s voice. It had to be her dog, she thought.
Roxy had been sick and Markie always worried she’d get a call about her dog while at school.
“It isn’t Roxy,” her mom explained.
It was her father.
Markie’s world as she knew it ended that day. She dropped the phone and ran out of the room. Screaming.
When Markie returned to campus after her world had been turned upside down, a group of leaders within the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences were meeting inside Marquette Hall.
They had learned that on the same day that Markie Pasternak had returned from spring break, her mother drove home and found her husband — Markie’s father — completely unresponsive in his favorite rocking chair. She immediately called 9–1–1, but it was too late. He was gone.
One of their best and brightest students needed help. In fact, Markie was a remarkable representative of Marquette. As a student leader, she served as the president of the national Active Minds Student Advisory Committee.
Markie also has an incredible ability called highly superior autobiographical memory, in which she can recall in specific detail what she did every single day. Fewer than 100 people in the world have her ability.
As a student, Markie worked with psychology professor Kristy Nielson to provide extensive testing of herself and her rare abilities, with Markie serving as both subject and co-author of a research paper.
And now, Markie needed them.
Under the direction of Dean Rick Holz, the Marquette leaders came together knowing they had to do something. They worked the phones, connected with the financial aid office and sought a solution. They couldn’t bear witnessing Markie struggle through classes while facing a mountain of financial responsibility that no 20-year-old should have to climb.
Would she have a future at Marquette?
Six months following her father’s death:
Late evening, September 14, 2014
After their long day at Lambeau Field selling items out of their wagon, Markie and her mom drove back to their house in DePere.
Markie then picked up the letter.
The thought of opening the letter was stressing her out. So, she didn’t. She looked at the return address. It was listed as “Office of Financial Aid.”
Another bill, she thought.
How am I going to pay for this?
A few hours later, the letter still sealed shut, she arrived back at her Marquette home of Campus Town East. It felt like days had elapsed since her mom picked her up that morning shortly after 6:30 a.m. She greeted her three roommates, and consumed by exhaustion, she settled into her bedroom by herself. She had to face her fear head on. It was time to open the letter.
Here goes, she thought.
Dear Markie,
Marquette University is pleased to inform you that you have been awarded a $15,000 scholarship…
She looked once again at the letter that came from her Marquette family and sat in stunned silence. In that moment, she knew. It was one letter that changed everything.
Epilogue
Thanks to her $15,000 scholarship, Markie Pasternak graduated from Marquette University in May 2016 with a degree in psychology. She went on to earn her master’s degree from Indiana University in May 2018 while attaining a full scholarship, earning her advanced degree from one of the nation’s most prestigious higher education and student affairs programs.
In the months leading up to her graduation at Marquette, she described feeling “so grateful” and she wrote thank you notes to her many professors who either “listened to me over coffee, let me babysit their families to try and make ends meet or were just there for me.”
Markie is now proudly Being the Difference at Auburn University, where she was hired in summer 2018.
She is paying it forward as a staff member of Auburn’s Division of Student Affairs where she is the adviser for the university’s Active Minds chapter.
She is providing mental health services for students who truly need help — students just like her.
If you would like to give scholarship aid to students at Marquette University who need your support, please go to this link.
- By Brian Dorrington
