A Candid Reflection On The Year That Wasn’t

Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be up here, and I just need to start by saying how amazing it is to see everyone – all together! Right in front of me! I really feel like it was last week that I was sitting at my house getting ready for my first day of remote school. 

I remember opening my chromebook, and clicking on my A block Google Meet link, and I remember just thinking  ‘oh my god, this is going to be my senior year’. 

I think we can all agree that it was tough for a while. It was tough to adjust. Personally I felt a bit like I was stuck in a year that wasn’t, some sort of great lost time, where all my milestones passed me quietly. 

But you know what, it got better. And easier – less alien. And, to be honest, sometimes even fun. We came back – sort of – a bit mixed up and split up, but we did it. It made me better appreciate the people that make this community special. The things that make this community vibrant. 

It made me reflect on what makes GHS great.  

I believe when doing something like this I’m supposed to have a message, and after all we’ve learned, through all we’ve overcome this year, I have realized what I want mine to be. Or maybe I should say, you’ve shown me what mine should be. 

You’ve shown me that success is not a personal metric. Instead it depends on the effectiveness of our ability to support others. 

When I saw the custodians taking on extra responsibilities, cleaning bathrooms, moving desks, to keep us in the building, I knew this. When I saw Mr. Cook and others staying late to make the latest schedule, I knew this.  When I saw teachers converting entire curriculums to split between online and in person learning, when I saw them teaching the same material in half time, I knew this. And of course, when I saw students showing up – to school obviously, which can sometimes be impressive in and of itself, but also for each other – carpooling to get to and from the building when we were hybrid, laughing through lunch even when there weren’t tables in the field house, I knew this. 

We make each other strong; we make each other into the people we want to see in this world; we make each other into the people we want to be in this world. 

And we do that by seeing ourselves in each other. 

Because that’s what education is all about, right. I mean, we’re here to do our jobs, to see our friends, to go to band practice, or soccer practice, or turn in our English papers – but really, I mean really, we’re here to empower and to be empowered. 

We’re here to arm each other with empathy, and then get out into the world and do something with it! 

I mean, think about it, we’re just these little thinking things, on a great blue rock, afloat in the great unknown. We’re so small, so infinitely small, but we can speak, and share, and create. 

We can build barriers but even better we can build bridges. And then when we cross them, we can reach each other, teach the other to build bridges too.  

Isn’t that just a miracle!? I am amazed by all the small miracles. 

Empathy is empowerment. And I promise, I’m not saying that because it sounds clever. I’m saying it because it’s true. 

My dad explained it this way – he said: “your greatness will be measured by the number of people you lift with you”. I believe that the famous quotation is: “We rise by lifting others.” So clearly I’m not the first one to say it, but it’s one thing to hear, and another to feel. 

What I’m trying to say is, after what you all have done for me, after what we all have done for each other, I think I have felt it. 

We rise when the theater program puts on a virtual show – and we rise when we remind the actors how wonderful they were. We rise when the athletic department totally rearranges the sports schedule to keep kids on the field, court, rink, pool – and we rise when those athletes show up in masks without a complaint. 

We rise when the Gloucester Education Foundation helps facilitate the funding of our engineering, auto, and countless other programs – and we rise when these resources help us give back to the community. We rise when the band plays over the computer, because they cannot play in the classroom – and we rise when they expand into media production – music trivia, podcasts – to better share their creativity. 

We rise when we make each other feel at home.

We rise when we are here for each other. 

Now, as we move on from GHS, I think we can all agree that we’re pretty elated. It’s a success and a celebration. But it also represents the end of a pretty major time in our lives, a good thing left behind, so it’s bittersweet. And maybe also a little daunting, since starting something new is always daunting. 

In the summer after 8th grade, being the ridiculously sentimental person I am, I wrote in a notebook that I wanted “a moment in suspension – where nothing moves and we all just learn the landscape of now”. I was (though it seems pretty ironic now) nervous about being in high school. It was an ending. Similar to this one, but different. Less final. And even then I was sad to say goodbye. 

But when I am with everybody here, in this moment, I don’t want to see the landscape of now any more. Instead I want to look to the landscape of the future. Because it’s so like the Sun –

which is bright and beauty and stubborn and soft 

and seeded with steel

and touching and untouchable

forgiving and fortitude 

and all seeing and unseen and 

full of space and in need of air,  

I want to see us, caring impassioned – infinite even – 

endowed with the gift to love unbidden –

Given to the world so we can love unhidden –

Given like the Sun to rise, full vision. 

And so I stand back, and watch us rise. 

Yes, that’s right. When I see the landscape of the future, I see you all in it, and nothing makes me happier, makes me more hopeful, than that vision.   

That’s just about all I have to share today, but before I pass the mic along I really have to say thank you. 

To all of you, the audience, and most importantly, to my class. We took a year that wasn’t and chose what could be. We took lost time and built it – little by little –  into something that doesn’t feel like a gap, but like a bridge. Something irreplaceable. We did it. 

Thank you.