Anniversary

“Today’s the anniversary of going home,” a teacher mentions casually at lunch.

We’re all quiet for a moment, considering. Going home?

Oh.

OH.

I remember that day. An email got sent to teachers that there was going to be an early dismissal. My colleague across the hall came to talk with me, and I brushed off her concerns. Then I checked my email again, and saw a new message: we wouldn’t be coming back for two weeks.

I had students pack their backpacks with extra books. I told them that it was likely these two weeks “off” would be made up during our April vacation, and we all groaned.

That weekend, my husband and I had a party with friends; the last gathering we’d have for months, and the last gathering indoors for a year.

It all felt unreal, and vaguely like a fun vacation until the following Monday, when I learned the public libraries would be shutting down. “Shutting down?!” I cried. “How can they do that?” I dashed to get to the library before closing time, pulling books quickly off shelves, gathering as large a stack as I could.

Two months later I was let back into my classroom to pack up the room for the year. On my white board still sat the morning message, “Dear Team, Today is going to be a pretty normal day. We don’t have anything unusual going on….”

Thanks to Megan Kroger for the inspiration today. Here’s her post that reminded me of my lunchtime conversation: https://musingmillennial93.wordpress.com/2024/03/13/four-years-ago-today/