April 3, 2020: Day 19 - An Unforgettable Year

Submitted by my nephew, and guest contributor, John Mark, proud member of the graduating class of 2020.  

 To the Class of 2020:

    Graduating has never in history been so easy, yet so hard at the same time. If I had the choice to give another year of my life for the chance to be in a classroom with my fellow classmates of 2020 again, there is no doubt I would take it. It would be easy for me to say I'm glad school is over, and that this has been a huge relief. The honest truth is, I'm not. None of us are. 

 Our senior year was supposed to be about:

    College applications.

Scholarship deadlines.

College visits. 

Our final season of spring sports. 

Pursuing playoffs. 

Making a run for that elusive state championship.

A final chance to perform on stage in the high school’s spring play.  

Prom.

Graduation.

But, this is not how our year played out.  The class of 
2020 has been forced to forfeit the standard 
high school experience.  Instead, we will close out our 
remaining days of high school sequestered in our homes 
dealing with the disappointment that this is how it 
all turned out. 

For those who aren't members of the class of 2020, no matter how many seniors you get the chance to talk to you will never understand the truth. Others in my grade may tell you that, yes, they are sad their senior year was cut short, and they will move on. But, we will not just move on this year will always haunt us.  I know it will haunt me.  

The reality is, high school is the last chapter of childhood.  Our senior year is the culmination of a k-12 public education, and the pinnacle of a four year high school experience. It is the last chapter in a book of magical moments where the world stops when you want it to. High school may very well  be the last place for many to get the chance to live a relatively carefree life. With so many mechanisms in place to protect us, even if, and when, we don't realize them. Even with all the new responsibilities that seniors encounter over the year, they are infinitely small compared to what the world will soon hurl at us. This beautiful time was cut short for all of us.

This year brought the end of sports careers for many athletes. And to all the spring athletes that lost your season, I know the pain. The ending of a career playing sports can be one of the most painful things to witness. One of my earliest memories as a bat boy for the Oregon Institute of Technology, where my father was coaching at the time, was witnessing such an ending.  The team had just finished playing a road game when I saw a grown man, a senior in college, and a player on the team, start to tear up and begin to cry in the corner of the dugout. His teammates tried to comfort him with somber, yet encouraging, remarks, thanking him for being their teammate and telling him what a blessing it was to play with him. My young mind didn't understand what was wrong; he hadn't gotten hurt or kicked off the team. So, I asked my dad why the player was so shaken up. I remember him explaining to me that this was the last baseball game he would play because his college eligibility had run out. I thought nothing of it, then. I was too young to understand. But now I realize that will be me someday. I will one day never put my cleats on to play another game of baseball. The sad thing is, this happened to many, many high school athletes across the country without them even knowing it. They will never again get the chance to compete, in the game they love.

Many of us, including myself, will soon be members of the military. This may be the most abrupt end to a childhood a person can choose. This decision seems more difficult than usual in light of these difficult circumstances because there is a chance they may not get a proper goodbye to the ones they love before they are sent off.  For many, it may be a very long time before they get the next opportunity to see their friends and family again. For others, this unceremonious end to the year might be more anxiety producing because they will be forced to enter the real world, months before they were anticipating having to make that leap. 

It saddens me to the deepest measures of my heart to say I may never see many of my classmates again. Although this letter is very low-spirited, there is a happy ending. When this virus comes to pass, and it will, we will be tougher because of it.  We will know, perhaps better than any other graduating class, that life, truly is not fair. It may not seem like it at the moment but the current situation we are facing will teach us that there are things we cannot control. Learning how to deal with the nature of things we cannot control is one of the greatest skills one can acquire, and will benefit us throughout our futures. 

We also have the potential to learn that nothing 
is promised.  Our entire worlds changed almost overnight.  
Where once we may have complained about the daily grind 
of school, practices, work, and the like, we realize now 
we don’t have any of that to fall back on. The day-to-day 
routine that once seemed like drudgery for some of us, 
has now become something we long for.  That perspective 
is something we ought to carry with us.  

Lastly, we are currently part of something that is far bigger than the abrupt end to high school.  We are witnessing something we’ve seen in our classes, and on our teams, and that is the power of the collective.  When we are all doing our part, big or small as it may be, we can overcome the biggest challenges of our lives. We are each called to participate in this collective action.  Let’s remember the good that can come from everyone working together toward a common end-goal. 

Yes, our time as seniors has come to an unanticipated end.  We didn’t get the opportunity to play the full game, and we will forever mourn that.  We have a lot of unfinished business that we’ll have to sort out for ourselves and that will undoubtedly take some time.   And, we’re having to learn some unquestionably hard life lessons early on in our relatively short lives. But, in the end, we will undeniably be stronger for having lived through a truly unforgettable year.