To my senior

My friend Christa recently said to me that her parenting arsenal has been reduced to two sentences during this pandemic: "I'm sorry" and "I love you." Yes, so true.

And so, in light of our school district's announcement yesterday that in-person school is cancelled for the rest of the year, I say this to my daughter Addison, a high school senior:

I'm sorry that your senior year ended on March 13 and you didn't even know it. I'm sorry you didn't get to say goodbye or have any of those "lasts" that all the rest of us took for granted. 

I'm sorry you didn't get to give your senior defense, the capstone project of your K-12 education at one school. I'm sorry you gave it eight months' worth of brain space and hard work, only to see it cancelled with so many other things. You would have done such a good job with it.

I'm sorry you're missing the senior lock-in, the senior scavenger hunt, the senior breakfast, and the senior assembly. I'm sorry that your graduation will be a drive-by diploma pick-up. I'm sorry that you have a brother who did all these things two years ago so that you know exactly what you're missing.

I'm sorry for the little things you'll never get to do again--drive your sisters to school, eat lunch in the band room, muster up your courage to share your thoughts in a Socratic seminar. I'm sorry I didn't get one last picture of you in your school uniform (or what you've been wearing the past couple years that we've called a school uniform).

I'm sorry that the hours, days, months, and years you've put into practicing music will not end with the senior recital we had planned.

I'm sorry for the senior girls in your class who have unworn prom dresses in their closets, for the senior baseball players and soccer players who got one game in before their season ended, for the track kids who were hours away from their first meet. I'm sorry for those hopeful athletes who needed one more season of highlight film to send to that college recruiter.

I'm sorry that you feel like life is too easy now for an introvert who loves to be alone, and that you feel like you're not stretching and growing like you used to every day when you went to school.

I'm sorry that you're trying to make a decision about college in the midst of the craziest days any of us has ever seen. I'm sorry that no one can guarantee you'll get to go to college in the fall.

I'm sorry that all of this feels so unreal that you can't even cry.

I'm sorry that for years we older people have doubted your generation's grit and resilience and that it took such a severe test for you to prove us wrong. You and every senior I know have blown me away with your resilience.

I'm sorry that I completely underestimated your ability to deal with the hard parts of life, when most days you're doing so much better with this than I am.

I'm sorry that you feel bad about feeling bad for your losses. I'm sorry that it feels selfish to mourn your graduation when people are dying and businesses are crumbling. Please know that loss is not a competition.

But here's what I'm not sorry for: that we are getting such sweet time with you, that instead of frantically running off to another senior event, you're playing dumb board games with us, watching 2012 episodes of Survivor with us, having a Tuesday-afternoon picnic in the park with us, playing basketball on rollerblades in the driveway with us. These are not the memories any of us expected to make in the last two months of your senior year. But they are good memories. We are not suffering here. God has been so good to us.

For what it's worth, sweet girl, I'm sorry for all you've lost. I'm sorry and I love you.