They ride up to school anxious about their first day. They say goodbye to their parents and get out of their cars to make the long walk up to the front doors of Xavier High School. They join the bustling crowd of students as they pass into the main gym for the first day Mass. They try to take in all of the new things around them, looking at all the new faces that they would come to know as family. Other classes filter by and they wonder if they are ever going to get as tall as them. As the room begins to quiet down they glance at the senior class, wondering what they would be like when they got that far. However, they didn’t think about this long as it’s a whole four years away and that’s such a long time.

Senior year, a time of many firsts, and even more lasts. It’s a year when one realizes that it’s been a whole 18 or so years, and it all leads to this, the year when one finally goes off on their own. For me, senior year seemed to have just started the other day and soon it will be at its end. This is the part of the year with so many of the lasts that make senior year special. However, all of this is yet to be seen because of a virus named COVID-19. At this point, some of the certainties in senior year have become a bit more blurry. It seems that many of those lasts might be hard to come by, or might not happen at all. With all this going on, it’s easy to look at these things as being stolen, gone from existence, leaving an empty void where they once were.

However, as is so often said, when one door closes, another one opens and this is also true right now. Instead of seniors focusing on what’s missing, maybe it could be looked at as an opportunity to fill the spot with something new, turning the loss of a last, to the creation of a first. It could be something as simple as getting together with each other on zoom, or holding a social distancing party, but there are many opportunities to make some good memories this senior year.

Additionally, this can be a good opportunity for the senior class to pass something along to the classes that will come after them. Everyone has their own experiences from this time and it’s important to pass that down, especially for the seniors, because in a way, that’s one of the greatest legacies that the senior class leaves behind. Maybe the impact the seniors of 2020 will have in their last semester won’t be a physical one comprising the things they’ve done, but rather one passed down through the memories and messages they leave behind and that’s perfectly okay.

In the end, nothing is certain and who knows, maybe in a couple weeks, or so, these things will just be something to look back on as the year finishes out. Even if the worst does come to pass, just remember that for those seniors out there, they will always be the Xavier High School class of 2020 and nothing, not even a virus, can take that away.