Here’s to the kids who were supposed to get their braces off after two long years, and now have to wait a few more months.
Here’s to the kids who couldn’t wait to get their driver’s license, and now they check daily to see when the DMV will open.
Here’s to the kids who are wondering if there will be any sort of graduation ceremony culminating 13 years of school, or if they will get to attend freshman orientation over the summer at their selected college–or if there will even be a fall semester.
Here’s to the kids who are wondering if they will miss their first time as a camp counselor or employee at the Froyo stand or the internship they worked so hard to get.
Here’s to the kids who were hoping to get their first kiss at the prom.
Here’s to the kids who dreamed of going to States in track or lacrosse or baseball or show choir. 
Here’s to the kids who wanted to put themselves out there and try something new this spring. 
Here’s to the kids who worked hard all year to come back from an injury.
Here’s to the kids who found their tribe in the band or orchestra or drama department and now feel lost without their people.
Here’s to the shy boy who was working up the courage to ask the new girl out for a movie. 
Here’s to the lonely girl who was just starting to make friends in her art class.
Here’s to the kids who have studied all year for their SATs and now sit anxiously wanting to get it over and done with.
Here’s to the kids who have worked hard all year to build up their GPA and now are unsure if their grades count.
And here’s to the kids who miss school because it was their safe place, where they were fed, where someone showed they were valued and loved.
Here’s to the kids whose lives are forever changed, forever branded with the mark of a virus that they do not fear but impacts them greatly.
We talk about big events like proms and graduations and college tours, but it’s not the big things they are missing. It’s the moments woven into these milestones, the imprints of these rites of passage.
We won’t know the long-term damage this will have on our kids for years, so let’s lift them up while we can.
Their grief is real, even if it seems small to us.
Their sadness is justified.
Their lives are changed.
May we remember their perspective is small and their feelings are big.
We can’t give you back the moments, the experience, the time, but we can acknowledge it hurts.
Here’s to the kids.

By Whitney Fleming, Playdates on Fridays

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now, 
on trying to make the world
different than it is. 
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

http://www.lynnungar.com 3/11/20

Imagine with me for a moment-
don’t worry, I’m not saying it’s real.
Imagine, if you can, that there has been
not a calamity, but a great awakening.
Pretend, just for a moment,
that we all so loved our threatened earth
that we stopped going on cruises,
limited international flights,
worked on cherishing the places
where we already are.
In this pretty fantasy, everyone who possibly can
stops commuting. Spends the extra time
with their kids or pets or garden.
We have the revelation that everyone
needs healthcare, sick leave, steady work.
It occurs to us that healthcare workers
are heroes. Also teachers.
Not to mention artists of all kinds
who teach us resilience and joy.
Imagine, if you will,
that we turned to our neighbors
in mutual aid, trading eggs for milk,
checking in on those who are elderly
or alone. Imagine that each of us
felt suddenly called to wonder
In this moment, what does the world
need from me? What are my gifts?
Yes, I know it’s just a fantasy.
The world could never change
so radically overnight.
But imagine.

http://www.lynnungar.com 3/20/20

I am on a deadline. I wish I could write something new about how we might best come through this terrifying patch of time. But I decided to re-post a slightly rewritten piece from a few years ago. Maybe there is something in it that will help break the trance of fear a lot of us are feeling. 

Where do we start?
We breathe, confused and stunned, pray, stick together.
Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe…
(continue reading) 

by Anne Lamott

“It was just a post on Facebook. I don’t know that I even considered it a poem,” said Kitty O’Meara. “You know, it was just a way of offering some comfort to my friends and myself.”

Watch this rendition on YouTube: And the people stayed home

      In the Time of Pandemic

      And the people stayed home. 

      And they read books, and listened, and rested,
      and exercised, and made art, and played games,
      and learned new ways of being, and were still.

      And they listened more deeply. Some meditated,
      some prayed, some danced. 

      Some met their shadows. And the people began
      to think differently.

      And the people healed.

      And, in the absence of people living in ignorant,
      dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
      the earth began to heal.

      And when the danger passed, and the people
      joined together again, they grieved their losses,
      and made new choices, and dreamed new images,
      and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
      as they had been healed.

      —Kitty O’Meara

Read more about this poem going viral here.