Class of 2020

This blog has become mostly a place where the kids birthday letters reside. As the kids have gotten older I have found it harder to blog because a lot of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs haven't really seemed like they are mine and mine alone to share. So my Monica's Mom Musings blog has pretty much shut down long ago. And this is what I've had left as well as Facebook to share what's going on.

Today, I felt the need to say something that's a little more than a Facebook post. You see in the midst of this pandemic Kaitlyn has lost a lot. She was supposed to get her driver's license right as everything shut down in our state so that has been put on hold. She was supposed to have an 18th birthday bash to end all (okay, not really, but she had big plans for her 18th birthday that had to be put on hold). Senior prom, cancelled. Senior trip, cancelled. School is now officially as of today out for the rest of the year. And we still have so very much unanswered questions about what is going to happen for the class of 2020.

And no, Kaitlyn and her school are not the only class dealing with this. I feel for every single Senior out there. Kaitlyn's school put together this 15 minute video about how much they miss everyone and plenty of shout outs to the class of 2020 in there. And I have been holding it together all this time, but watching that cheesy video the school and staff put together I couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

I got to thinking all the way back to even before I met Kaitlyn. When she was just a teeny tiny little embryo in my stomach in 2011 when 9/11 happened. I was pretty newly pregnant with Kaitlyn and it seemed like the world was ending then. I cried so hard wondering what am I doing bringing this baby into THIS world, this is awful. She was born seven months to the day of 9/11 and it was all still very fresh in everyone's mind, all over the news it kept saying, today is 7 months since 9/11.

Life marched on though, Kaitlyn made plans for her future, and dreamed big. This was supposed to be her year. She worked so hard for this. She isn't getting the chance to say goodbye to her friends, she had no idea the last time she saw them could very well have been the last time she actually saw them. She can't get her yearbook signed by her friends, she's not getting the prom that she insisted she didn't want to go to anyways, but now that she can't it's super disappointing. And there is going to be nothing like what she envisioned, if they even get some sort of graduation. Everyone says they will do something, but it's not going to be the same.

That video her school made hit me super hard though. They came into this world in a time of war, and now they are graduating in a national pandemic. It's not supposed to be like this. My heart breaks for the entire class of 2020 and it also breaks for the parents of the class of 2020. We too had big dreams for what this year would be like, the memories that would be made. And they did not include toilet paper shortages, school ending months earlier than it was supposed to and being switched to online, and the very real realization that graduation, at least in the traditional sense of the word was simply not going to happen. And of course I want everyone to be safe, I know this is the way it has to be, but I should be crying tears of joy right now not tears of sadness for what my daughter is missing out on.

I know she will rise above all of this, I know she will make of her life everything she has dreamed of it, and she will go forward head held high. But some day when she either has children of her own and/or nieces and nephews asking her about her senior year, I just wish this wasn't the story she would have for them. I mean I guess depending how she tells it, who knows it could end up sounding pretty cool. And it will be a graduating class all of us will be talking about for years to come I would imagine.

Class of 2020, it was supposed to be your year. We are all grieving with you.