Science in Progress Final Draft

The Love of Mitochondria

His dark brown eyes look into my own of a lighter hue.

Light bounces in, and its signal is accepted by photoreceptors. This will be sent to the brain to be processed.

He touches my hand.

Receptors send a signal through the peripheral nervous system. An electrochemical signal responds, stimulating cardiac muscles. Shorter repolarization of action potentials produce premature heart palpitations.

My heart beats rapidly.  

Simultaneously an electrical signal is sent through the nervous system in the form of action potentials into the T-tubule of muscle cells. This promotes the release of calcium into the sarcomere of a muscle. Actin and myosin can now interact with one another, producing a muscle contraction.

My hand reaches for his.

ATP floods into the sacromere and binds to the myosin head. It frees itself from the actin filament. The muscle relaxes.

My hand relaxes in his.

The yellow, brown and orange sand "steps" lies beneath our feet, the massive open expanse of eroded sandstone above our heads. Our mouths gape at the breathtaking view: miles upon miles of green trees planted in the mist of brown and sandy ridges. The grey clouds cover what could have been a blue sky. After a couple of miles of hiking in Hocking Hills, foraging our own path through the cold mud and slightly frozen ground, awkwardly walking in a single file, refusing to take his hand for support, slipping down the hill and being covered in mud, silently running out of things to say, we have made it . . . Old Man's Cave. . . He is holding my hand. . . . We have survived.

Our first date.

~

Companionship has been ingrained into our brain by society and religion. We need love to live as 1 Corinithians 13:2 says, “if I . . . understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” There has always been a need for a union of two.  It was only through marriage of Adam and Eve that God created us in his image. We need another individual to live with, understand, sympathize with, cherish, and love until our dying days. We need someone to be with us through sickness and through health. We need someone to bring out the best in us. We need someone to make us complete.

~

Compatibility was not what I had at all thought about when I came to college. I was too busy, too focused on my goal to get a double major, do well in school. I needed to focus on my studies; I did not need a guy to be a distraction. And while I did sincerely believe in Christianity, I was sick of the idea of relationships . .  . women being submissive? Eve always getting the blame for the fall of mankind? Really? Didn’t they both eat the apple? Did they not both fall? Were they not both tempted? I went to bible study but kept my tongue when relationship issues sprang up or a guy went about submission of women. That was the last thing I needed – a guy telling me what to do.

That is not what I found with Tyler. We both lived on the second floor of Perkins that year; both were biology students and Christians. He was a part of the group of friends that I began hanging out with. He was the brother of a fellow trombone in the Marching 110. We met in Shively when I had been looking for a place to seat and eat after band practice – both Sarah and Sara, who I usually ate with, had meetings that day – and he offered me a chair. Soon we began studying together for the exams.

Over winter break, he started sending me texts. Before, I received the normal group text, “Hey, dinner in 10 minutes? Meet in the lobby,” but now it was the genuine, “How’s your break going?” or the more intimate, “Do you like Mannheim Steamroller? I could get tickets for us to go? . . .You could call it an early Christmas present.” Unfortunately, that never happened – I had to leave to play in the New Orleans Bowl.

I still remember the evening in December when the lunar eclipse happened. We had been talking about it for days and developed this plan that we were both going to watch it at the same time. So around 2 am, I stealthily snuck out of my room and down the stairs, grabbed my phone and camera, and made my way outside. The snow was wet and cold against my fleece pjs until came up with the brilliant idea to sit upon another winter coat. There I talked to Tyler on the phone for about an hour while watching the lunar eclipse. Most of the time it was silence or non-sense talking or giggling or shivering. And while Columbus had been cloudy that night and he really did not see anything, still we shared that experience together.

~

Humans seek each other for stability. We follow the elements that make us. Unless the element is an unreactive, very stable noble gas, such as Neon or Argon, most elements can only find stability in another. They react so that they become more stable, more complete.

Biology furthers this need for relationships in the idea of procreation. A life form must be able to grow, metabolize, respond to stimuli, adapt and reproduce. – It was one of the reasons why it was so controversial whether a virus is living or nonliving; it does reproduce but relies on the host to be able to do that. – It is the idea of reproduction and diversifying the gene pool for better survival that underlies attraction. We are attracted to a person that will better pass on your genes and through pheromones, we find this compatible individual. It was also this idea that led my Evolution professor to conclude that the lack of pheromones, covered by deodorants and perfumes led to the higher rates of divorce and break-up.

~

Tyler and I would grin and roll our eyes at each other when our professor would go on with this theory of attraction or his insistent belief that individuals should not shave, wear deodorants or really anything that civilization had forced upon us. Not wear deodorant? Not bathe? Eek! Not shave my legs . . . .okay, that is all good for winter months, but even then . . . it becomes too prickly and dry. Ugh.

Three months had passed since our first date and five since that lunar eclipse. We could now laugh at the awkwardness of that day in February. The day that he had brought me a huge velveteen Valentine’s heart filled with at least 50 Hershey chocolates. I shyly had blushed and given him his birthday gift – it fell on Valentine’s Day – of books from his favorite mystery author Agatha Christie. Then as if nothing had happened, we had gone back to doing homework. We were both logical and should not let emotion be shown. We kept with our normal routine; Ashley, the girl who had a huge crush on Tyler and followed him around like a puppy dog, still came over to study and Tyler still walked her back to her dorm around midnight. Or how on that day, I had broken down crying to Sarah, wondering that because Tyler walked Ashley home every single night, he must like her and how he could give me chocolate. (I swear I am not that stupid.) Or how that day, Sarah consequentially yelled at him, and he came clamoring over to my room with the confused “What did I do” expression. Or how that day finally ended at 1 am with,

“Well, do we want to be more than friends? Would you like to go on a date with me?”

Our friendship grew. We were there for each other. In texting he was the first person I talked to in the morning and last person that I wished good night. I was the first person he would text to let me know about good or bad news. I was the first person that he would come to bounce an idea off on school, or a dilemma. He was my best friend.

It was a symbiotic relationship.

~

Mitochondria have two membranes surrounding its matrix and its own set of DNA - which is believed to be passed down from our mother's mitochondria in the egg. Theoretically, this is all because the mitochondria once existed as bacteria and were engulfed by the larger eukaryote. In exchange for protection, it broke down pyruvate into ATP, which the cell could use as energy to maintain itself and our body. Our muscles could use that to contract and move. Our heart can use that energy to beat. As basic as water and food are to us, we need our mitochondria to break down that food into energy. We need that energy in order to live.

We need our symbiotic relationships.

~

We need love. 1 Corinthians 13 dictates that “Love is patient; love is kind . . .  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Song of Solomon 8:6-7 states that “love is strong as death . . . Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” No matter how frustrated I could get with Tyler’s obliviousness, I still loved him. No matter how much I frustrated him with my long “soliloques,” he must have still cared for me.

~

I still had not told Tyler that I loved him. A year had passed since we had first started dating. I had been thinking about saying it for about three or four months, but I was not sure how to do it. I wasn’t even sure how he would react. Was he supposed to say it first? Was this how a guy felt on asking out a girl? The anxiousness of rejection but hope for acceptance? All I knew was that I wanted it to be special. Maybe when we were walking in Hocking Hills? Maybe a night at Emeritus Park? Under the cherry blossoms during April? Sure I could wait another two months . .

 Instead, it had just slipped out. We were cuddling on my paisley teal and white bedspread, watching a movie, but I could not remember the movie at all. I usually fell asleep, especially if it was that horrible movie “SSSSSSS” or “Snakes on a Plane.” I would let Tyler pick and tried to stay awake, but normally fell asleep. Anyway, all I remember is waking up. The movie had already ended, and he was snoozing beside me. I then ruined it with, whispering in his ear, “I love you.”

“What?” He opened eyes, but I am still not sure if he heard it.

I looked at the bed spread. “Nothing.”

“Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

~

But we did love each other, I think. We endured the good and bad times together. He hugged me during the liver failure and later death of my aunt during finals week of Winter Quarter freshman year. He offered his shoulder when I heard the news of my grandma's death finals week of that Spring Quarter. I helped him with problems of dealing with an insecure ex-girlfriend. I was there for him when he was anxious about grad school, his majors, his indecision for a Double Major in Math, a minor in Chemistry, or his frustration in not having work summer of Sophomore/Junior Year. We were there for one another as two individuals in love or in symbiosis.

~

            In an ideal world, mitochondria generates energy. Our cells work. Our body is maintained. Yet our life is not perfect. We age. Our mitochondria generate reactive oxygen species, or oxygen radicals through the pumping of hydrogen in Complex I and III of the Electron Transport Chain. If not removed, these build up in the cells. They act as a toxin and promote decline in cellular function. As our cells degrade, our bodies break down. We age.

~

The words reverberate as we sit on the teal bedspread a couple of feet away from one another.

I have known for a month that they are coming. Maybe longer. The busy schedules, the lack of communication, the infrequent texts, the distance in living, the fact that he goes out to lunch more with his other friends than tries to find time to spend with me, the fact that I am way too busy with school, work or band to care, the fact that he is drinking more than I would like, the fact that I am angry with him and will not share why, the fact that we are changing . . . growing . . . All of this acts as ligands, or signals. My receptors should have accepted them and prepared.

"I just don't think this is working out."

~

 Instead, I imagine that this was probably something that hydrogen would say when leaving its NADH in the mitochondria. It flits away across the inner mitochondrial membrane. It probably had a jolly time with NAD, but it has to leave. It needs to cross the membrane to create the proton gradient to force ATP to be made.

I wonder what if the cell had said that to the mitochondria. Would we still be living? Would we be as big or complex? But what if it had been a faulty mitochondria? Overloaded with too much food to generate ATP? What if it produced too many ROS? Was I a faulty mitochondria? Had I let too much work and school overload me, not providing enough for this relationship? Had I provided too much? Too much that the cell was overwhelmed? That had the body aged too quickly? Degraded too soon?

~

I walk him out of the front door, down the grey/white stairs and to his car. We hug. The  freezer soon finds me: strawberry ice cream, peanut butter, chocolate. My roommate Siri turns on the light. I see the disgusting concoction. I see her worried eyes. I am sad. I am anger. . . . I am . . .  relieved?

~

            It is times like these that it is hard to have faith. Some days I felt lost or confused about where I was going. Would I be able to call Tyler a friend?  As Christians, we are called to love everyone, including friends or acquaintances or ex-boyfriends. We must love those that we are still trying to not to be angry at, forget and forgive. Yet it is times like these that we must love. We must have faith.

As much as 1 Corinthians 13 dictates about the consistency of love, it also states, “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” It shows that we do not know what will happen. It shows that each experience has a purpose that we may not understand, but we must have faith. It gives the power and strength to be independent. The faith to accept whatever your life will. That maybe you will find someone and maybe not.

~

Science also offers strength.

Hydrogen eventually diffuses out of the inner membrane space of the mitochondria and into the cell. Eventually it finds and binds to some other element, most likely oxygen. There it becomes more stable and remains with that element until eventually it will leave again and bind to something else again.

Or that maybe the mitochondria did not need the cell or the body . . . That it could have lived without the cell, it could have been independent and strong, remained single. In that case, would it not have been known as mitochondria . . . would it not be a microbe? A bacteria?

~

He sits down next to me in class. He asks nonchalantly about winter break, about all the months since October that I have not seen him. He laughs at some stupid joke or woe that I share about work. He shares his drama with his roommates in the apartment. I express my sympathy. We do not mention the _________. It does not exist. It did not happen; we were not in a relationship. Neither of us were in love. Neither of us were mitochondria, neither of us were hydrogen with oxygen or NADH.

No. We are bacteria. That are single-celled and independent. That just happen to live in symbiosis.