My 9th graders return to school on Monday for orientation. Nearly one year to the day, after their young, adolescent lives were literally ripped out from under them, like everyone else. In so many ways, looking back now, it feels as though time just stopped on the date we all remember: March 12, 2020. It was the last day of in-person school and as we hurried about through our busy morning routine that day; not a one of us realized it at the time.
No championship basketball game in the spring of 2020. No spring musical. Cancelled spring break trip to North Carolina. No 8th grade graduation or celebration.
Fear. Anxiety. Sick family members.
Loss of all things structure and routine.
We tried. We rallied as a family and made the best of a difficult situation most of the time. Not all of the time. There were arguments and disagreements, frustrations and the like; living side by side in the house for nearly a year now, without many breaks from the day in and day out, new routines we did our best to establish.
There were game nights and karaoke nights and family dinners, small celebrations of birthdays and a few summer day trips over the past year, as there have always been. We counted our blessings. We did what we could to encourage and support others. COVID hit here too. My husband has not yet fully recovered, a year later. As a family we have had to adjust to a new “normal” of patience and support; doctor visits, tests; moments of progress here and there, but also, periodic moments of despair that things will never change; he will never return to the health he enjoyed prior to contracting the virus. In some medical circles, those who continue to experience these types of symptoms months and now, nearly a year after the fact, are referred to as “long-haulers” or something like that. Doctors are not quite sure how to treat yet. Collaboration and research is ongoing, and that in and of itself, brings hope on the road to recovery.
The road to recovery.
It has been the journey of a lifetime, this past year. We are more fortunate than so many; in acknowledgment and remembrance of those who have lost their lives, the ongoing grief and suffering of families, and those who have lost their livelihoods.
Back to the school building next week for my 9th graders. FINALLY. So excited.. and a little “terrified” for all the changes.. again. School is not going to be as they remember it, but young people are especially resilient. They will adjust. As an educator and parent, I feel a profound sense of duty and obligation to help our young people adjust through additional doses of kindness and grace, and the recognition that our students, all students, have experienced trauma over the past year; some more than others, and they need us to prioritize their social-emotional well being over everything else, first.
And that’s life, isn’t it? We keep going, through the pain, the heartache, the joy and the triumphs and the never ending changes or chapters of life. We entered a chapter unexpectedly last year, like Alice tumbling blind down the rabbit hole, and now as we prepare to turn the page to another chapter over the weekend “before life goes on,” it is truly: #bittersweet
If you know me well, you get this post and you understand why I love this old Carrie song as much as I do.
Reblogged this on Beyond Mud Pies.