Well- today was one of those days that I knew would come, but I still wish it had not ended this way. 

I always knew that I would wake up one morning to a post or an online article stating Pennsylvania schools are closed until the end of the school year. I just was hoping that some kind of miracle would happen, that this process would speed up and that all would be okay. I was hoping that the announcement would be made in another few weeks just to give us that little bit of faith we have been holding onto-small threads of faith that we know could break at just any moment.

I'm not quite ready to write an open letter to my students because I think I would fall to tears in the process. And right now-I'm just too emotionally split for any kind of tears and so that letter will come when this news has been digested and we once and for all realize that we cannot give our students the ending they deserve. But what I will say is this has been one of the greatest teaching years of my career. I have learned more from my students this year than any other. Every group always comes with their own unique character and this one embodied love and diverse perspectives and hugs and more hugs. The students became a family within one or two weeks of school. And usually when that happens, you just know that you are in for something so very special. 

To say I'm broken-hearted would be a true understatement, but I'm trying to hold on because what is there to do? I'm still going to show up every day for the next nine or so weeks into that virtual classroom with a smile on my face teaching and communicating and joking around as best as I can because this will be all I have left of our time together. I think it won't really sink in until we begin school next year and I see those old students with their unique personalities and their endless laughter and smiles and realize-I didn't get to say goodbye properly, that we didn't get to celebrate life at the end like we usually do or sing during Field Day or cry together the very last day of school. But I can say most faithfully that there was never a day this year I came home without a smile or the simple phrase, "I have been blessed this year with the best class ever." And no pandemic can take away that kind of love and that kind of beauty or that kind of hope. 

So I'm here filled with gratitude for the journey I had with my students who taught me more life lessons in just 8 months than I have learned from 27 years of living on this earth. And we will continue to love one another and joke around until the very end because that is what family does and that is what family is. 

It is with the most sorrowful heart I say goodbye to the ending I thought I had and invent a new one with just as much grace and passion and love.