March 13, 2022

Last Day

On Friday, for the first time in three years, I dropped my child off for the final school day before March Break with the sense that they’ll likely be returning to class a week from Monday as planned. For the first time in three years, the atmosphere on the last day before break was festive—kindergarteners were dressed up like superheroes, Iris’s class had all brought in stuffies, a karaoke party is planned for my middle schooler this afternoon. I’m so overwhelmed, happy and grateful for all of it. And as I walked back down the sidewalk, I watched other parents arriving at school, many of them carrying their little ones who’d been walking too slow (the bell had just rang!) and I thought of parents in Ukraine who’d carried their children for miles to a border, other parents for whom safety is elusive now, and while I really don’t have any idea what those people are experiencing, I can say with certainty, just like you can, that after the last two years I do know something about what it is to have the wheels fall off your life, your world. To have the ordinary suddenly transformed into something unnavigable and frightening, and I just thought about how connected all of us are, even those of us fortunate enough to live in peace and safety right now, which I’ve never taken for granted, but also never appreciated so very much as now. And, as Ursula Franklin writes, peace is indivisible. We need it for everyone.