Editorial: Celebrating the quarantine grads

Well, you did it, Class of 2020.

Whether you finished grad school or picked up your bachelor’s degree, made it through high school or just figured your way out of kindergarten, you got it done.

Congratulations.

But yes, it might be hard to believe. Is it really over? It doesn’t feel over. It feels like something is missing.

Where was that thesis reading event for your master’s program? What happened to the big party after your college graduation with your mom so proud and your dad asking if you got a job yet?

Where was prom? And baccalaureate? Seniors skipping school together to go on impromptu, unsanctioned field trips they were specifically warned would not be tolerated?

What happened to the eighth-graders getting a peek at the high school to see the big pool those little fish would swim in the next year? What happened to fifth-graders visiting the strange new world of changing classes and lockers in middle school?

Where were the paper hats on kindergartners singing off-key and waving to Mom as they finished up that all-important first year of real school?

Whether they were 6 feet tall or 6 years old, graduates of all kinds missed something this year.

The coronavirus pandemic stole closure. It stole celebration. It stole the end of the string that ties up the circle of the school experience, making it complete.

Graduation might seem like a party that doesn’t really matter. You got the diploma, right? You earned the degree. You’re moving to first grade or sixth or ninth or college or on to grad school or into the world armed with knowledge that you worked to acquire. You did that. Does the pomp and circumstance really make a difference?

It does.

Graduation is more than a ceremony. It is a transition that helps us move from one thing to the next. It says goodbye and prepares us to say hello. And lockdowns and quarantines took that away.

It isn’t anyone’s fault, any more than a fire or a flood or a tornado could have done the same thing to any particular group of students. A virus doesn’t care that you didn’t get to take pictures with your grandma in your cap and gown.

And yes, there have been efforts to give the kind of accolades that were missing, from star-studded online speeches and local parades with honking horns and paperboard signs. But you still get to feel bad for missing what you earned, and the people who love you get to be indignant at the theft.

What can’t be stolen, though, is the milestone. You did this thing. You made this journey. However you will choose to mark it — with family and friends or the community or celebrities — this mountain, large or small, was yours to climb and you did it.

Congratulations, Class of 2020. Throw that cap. Turn that tassel. Celebrate and look ahead to the next horizon, because you are the only one who can make sure that you have more pomp and circumstance in your future.