My senior year has been anything but normal. Sure, a certain unnamed global pandemic may have interrupted it just when it started to get really great, but there are so many other wonderful things to be thankful for and other not-so-wonderful things to learn from. I began my fall semester like any other senior, by taking two five-credit college classes. I took calculus in the mornings two days a week, and those same days I would head to a 3 hour chemistry lab at 6:30. I spent hours trying to figure out what my Russian chem professor was saying and doing homework each week, and it was HARD, and the classes were long. I got good grades, hung out with friends, and practiced shot put and discus after school.

All of this was great, but when I went home I had to face the fact that my beloved Archie, a golden retriever that we got as a puppy when I was six years old, was getting sicker by the day. He couldn’t keep food down, and lost 15 pounds because of it. He was getting too tired to sneak upstairs into my room to sleep by my side, and I had to face the fact that I would be losing my best friend of 11 years. The night before we put Archie down, I slept downstairs on the couch so that I could be with him even if he couldn’t make it up the stairs. Our goodbyes were said, and as hard as it was to watch him go to sleep, I was so thankful to have had the opportunity to love a dog as excellent as him.

School in quarantine is way different. Most days I wake up around 10, workout, and then do some homework. Being home has given me the gift of precious time before I (hopefully) leave for school in the fall. I’ve been able to paint and do my nails and cuddle with my pug. I still go down to the track every once in a while to throw, and we go on walks as a family some nights. I may not get to go to my senior prom, walk the stage in front of my family at graduation, or have a grad party, but I had a wonderful senior year.

~Kendall, Class of 2020