We Never Got to Say Goodbye

By Ashley

On Monday, April 20th, 2020, Ohioan Governor Mike DeWine, announced in one simple seventeen-word tweet that, “for the remainder of this school year, our young people will continue to go to school remotely.” He officially ended the 2020 school year and therefore, cut short every senior’s last year of high school.

As a senior of Athens High School, many of us left for spring break thinking we would be back in our classrooms with our teachers within a week, but we never expected March 6th (the Friday before spring break) to be our last goodbye.

We didn’t know that it was going to be the last time we were getting to walk the halls of our high school or the last time we were getting to see our teachers or the last time we would get to spend time with many of our friends we got used to seeing every day. We didn’t know it was going to be the last day of our senior year. Some of us expected we wouldn’t be going back to school and honestly never liked going to school anyway, but when some of us heard the news our hearts broke at the new reality our senior year had turned into.

Now, there is a possibility of graduation, the moment some of us have looked forward to since the first day of our senior year, being held online. Ultimately, that possibility has now turned into a reality. In one simple email sent to our parents, the high school announced that there will be no in-person graduation ceremony on May 30th or in the summer and therefore, it will be held virtually. The entire senior class deserves a graduation ceremony; it is the moment we have waited for our entire lives and to have it taken away is heartbreaking.