All we really wanted was the chance to say goodbye. Twelve years of hard work and dedication ended on some random Thursday in March. We didn’t get to finish out our senior year with all of our friends and teachers. Now, everyone is taking the next steps in their lives, and there is a chance we might never see each other again. Hopefully, we will be able to have one last goodbye. 

I have driven through the parking lot staring through the windows at the place that welcomed me for the last four years. I felt abandoned and hopeless. My heart ached to be let back through those doors. I wished this was all a dream. Tomorrow, I would be shaken awake by my mom and told that better get up now or I might be late for school. 

We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. To clean out the lockers, to get whatever we left behind. 

We all left on March 12th thinking we would be back on Monday. I walked out of Spritzer’s room at 2:25 ready to go home. Nobody thought that would be our last day. I remember a couple of my teachers mentioned the possibility of going online soon but we all brushed that aside because this virus wasn’t gonna affect us right?

It is now nine weeks later and I don’t know if I will step through those doors again. This year was supposed to be a milestone. Like thousands of other seniors, I am missing the final months of my senior year. I was supposed to have prom, graduation, graduation parties, and vacations. Now, I can barely leave my house. 

All I wanted was the chance to say goodbye. 

Goodbye to halls filled with posters where I laughed with my friends on my way to class. 

Goodbye to my routine that I kept for years that always began with waking up at six in the morning. I found comfort in that routine because it kept me going through tough days. 

Goodbye to all the friends I made in classes when we bonded over a project, or we just started talking for some reason. 

Goodbye to the noisy cafeteria filled with announcements, famous chicken turnovers, and random applause. 

Goodbye to the rowdy student section with kids who come out and support their friends. I’ll especially miss the Friday night football games.

Goodbye to the comfy chairs in the library that we sat in during socratic seminars and study hall. 

Goodbye to the all staff who made me feel welcomed there for four years, especially Mrs. Guarriello, the guidance department, and of course, Officer McLaughlin.  

And most of all, I want to say goodbye to the teachers. Some I’ve had multiple times and loved every second; some I’ve only had for one year, but they still went above and beyond. 

The things that were annoying at the time, I now miss. I’d do anything to face the cursed intersection between classes. Now, parking spot 73 stands empty along with the rest. 

I’ll miss hearing music through the intercom on Mondays and Fridays, and those hours spent in the pub lab. I’ll miss how I couldn’t feel my feet dancing after homecoming. I’ll miss weaving through people while speed walking through the hallways. I’d give anything to sit at my desk in Mr. Castagna’s class, next to a cabinet that didn’t close right so I would hit my elbow on it. 

One last goodbye is all I can ask for. I know we have been told a million times that we are resilient and after this our actions matter more now than ever. We are outspoken and this will be our story to tell for years to come. We will enter adulthood in the next few years of our life and have the power to make an impact, but moving from one point in life to the next, requires closure.  

Saying goodbye is never easy, and this year makes it ten times harder. Someday, I know we will look back on all the happy memories we made at Southern Lehigh High School, but for now we say goodbye.