Goodbye.

The word we were supposed to say today in a hundred different ways.

With hugs and smooshed up homemade cards. With yearbooks signings and slideshows and a whole heap of sniffly moms. With mass chaos and ridiculously loud locker cleanouts and enough Starbucks gift cards to last until 2021. With one last chance to sing together, create together, learn together, be together.

But. Life.

And so, you lovingly cleaned out lockers and desks and all the things that make a school year. You answered every email from every sniffly mom trying to fill your shoes. You put on parades, you made slideshows and you taught through glass doors, just so our babies felt a little safer and a little more loved. You braved Zoom and its chaos to give the gift of one last chance to sing together, create together, learn together, be together.

You gave yourself away in a time when you could have held back.

You pressed through the hurt of holding on when it would have been easier to let go.

You showed us all how the heart of a teacher can breathe hope into the dark when light feels far away.

But it is in the giving, in the pressing, in the showing, you have come out better and braver than you were before.

And it may just be why this year we love you even more.