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Dear Seniors,

Every generation has its defining moment. The moment when time seems to stop and the world forever shifts.

For my grandmother’s generation, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

For my parents, it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

For Generation X, it was the Challenger explosion.

For me, it was September 11, 2001.

For you, it’s probably this.

And yet, this is different. It is not a single moment. Although you may be able to recall years in the future exactly where you were when you heard that schools in Ohio were to be closed for three weeks (and then three more, and then the rest of the school year), that is not the moment that changed your world.

You’re still in that moment.

Your moment is ongoing and unpredictable.

And you have every right to be sad and disappointed that your senior year has been cut short and rearranged.

But there are so many things to be learned from these defining moments. And while some of these lessons may seem trite and cliche, I think they’re still worth mentioning.

This is now a part of your story. One thing that’s notable about these generational defining moments is that everyone has their story of what it was like. If you put any number of people over age 25 in one room, each person could tell you exactly where they were on 9/11. I can tell you where I was, who I was with, and what happened for the rest of that day.

This is a moment that will tie people your age together for the rest of your lives. And while it’s terrible that it takes such a tragedy to bind people together, it’s also kind of magical to have those kinds of connections with others.

You’re not alone in this. Despite the social distancing, you have each other. You have an incredible ability to communicate electronically that no other generation had at their defining moment. My brother lived in Washington, DC, in September of 2001, so I had to wait hours to know if he was ok. You can text, Facetime, Snapchat any number of your friends and check in on them right now. Do it.

This too shall pass. You might come out different on the other side, and that’s ok. That’s good. These defining moments force you to grow up a little, to see the world a little differently. This moment will stay with you for the rest of your life, but you won’t be living in it for the rest of your life. While the future may look different than you expected, there will still be a life worth living once the storm has gone.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I can make no predictions about the spread of a new disease, and I am in no position to make any political decisions.

I do know that your teachers miss you. We chose this career because we want to interact with people, not with emails and Google Classroom posts.

I do know that if we don’t get the chance to say good-bye to you, we’re going to be heartsick.

But I have hope.

I hope that I will get to see your faces again.

I hope that we will all come back from this with a new perspective, a little more patience for others, a little more kindness to give, and a little more gratitude for this gift of life.

I hope I have the chance to smile and cry and wish you well as you walk out of those green doors one last time.

But if I don’t, I want you all to know this: you are all capable of so much good. I can’t wait to see where you go from here.