Commentary: How a graduating senior views life during COVID

Published 1:30 am Sunday, April 26, 2020

By Savannah Thoma / For The Herald

Dear Class of 2020 (and to anyone else willing to listen):

With the coronavirus still at large around the world, and our school shut down for the rest of the 2019-20 school year, there are some things that I would like to share.

I would first like to start off by saying that in these uncertain times I have learned that fear can cloud almost all thought and take over our emotions so quickly if we let it. But, hear me out, now more than ever we need to clear our minds and know that we will get through this together.

Today we are more dependent on others than ever before. We need our doctors to have time to find a vaccine, we need everyone around us to be taking social distancing seriously, and we need the support of our friends and family to help us keep going. And yet we have to be more self-reliant and autonomous than ever before.

That requires keeping our minds occupied while at home, finding new ways to get things done remotely, being more creative in the ways we show compassion and kindness toward others, and most importantly still taking care of ourselves even though there are so many unknowns at the moment. While we’re at home and time continues to move forward, we need to give ourselves the space and freedom to process our thoughts and emotions.

Everyone is going through some form of loss right now, and that’s just what we are living in. Everyone is experiencing some sort of suffering that most of us can’t describe because it was so suddenly forced upon us for our own safety.

For me, I’m struggling with the reality that my senior year is not going at all how I pictured it, and I know I am not alone in that. But now more than ever it’s so important that we don’t compare losses, and we don’t judge others; nothing good comes of that. Acknowledging our own grief and being compassionate, empathetic, spreading kindness and love is the best way to help not just the people around us, but ourselves.

With that that being said, if I had been able to grasp the fact that March 12 was the last day I, and the rest of the class of 2020 would ever walk the halls of Monroe High School as students ever again, I would have appreciated it more.

I still have hope that I will get to experience my last day of high school with all of my friends in June like it’s supposed to happen. I still have hope that I and my fellow classmates that I grew up with will be able to walk at our graduation ceremony. But the chances of that happening seem less and less likely every day.

In spite of not knowing what my prom, graduation ceremony, my freshman year at college, my future will look like, there is hope.

The class of 2020, being born in the midst of the stress, fear and sorrow following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism attacks has helped shape who we are. And yet, now some 18 years later we are about to start our adult lives amid a pandemic.

The strength and resilience of my classmates have made them some of the most generous, kind, intelligent, creative, intuitive, logical, strong, courageous and fearless people in the world. And that even if we don’t get a graduation ceremony, we all know how hard we have worked.

We all have faced adversity together, and coming out on the other side of this virus, we will be even stronger together. We will continue to lift each other up and support each other, and I look forward to the day where we can all put this behind us, and use what we have learned to better our world.

Thank you for reading.

Savannah Thoma is a senior at Monroe High School. She plans to attend Western Washington University later this fall.