My Final Bow Overshadowed by a Pandemic
May 6, 2021
Samantha Kelley, personal photo
Senior Samantha Kelley in her junior prom dress. The junior prom was cancelled due to COVID-19 and will be held this June instead.
Since Abington High School has opened back up its doors on Monday, April 12 for all students to come back to school, I have been looking forward to having a “normal” rest of my senior year. But due to this pandemic, my dreams of leaving this school with a bang are being crushed.
I have always been told to wait, that it would be my turn soon. And yet here I am, a month out from graduation, biding my time, praying time will speed up so I can leave what has begun to feel like prison. I have been serving my time since I was five-years-old, and here I am about to turn 18, about to be set free into the real world, and I could not be more disappointed to leave.
Growing up I heard about the amazing things people do amidst their senior year. But this pandemic has put some things to a halt and changed others.
Having events provide some sort of closure to the students’ last year of high school. But they were ripped from our grasp.
Things such as a “normal” homecoming and pep rally were things we always looked forward to, knowing they would be our last chance to attend them together. Things like junior prom, which was cancelled last year and promised to us this year, does not leave me much room to hope it will happen, knowing how this pandemic has worked.
Due to this irregular year, graduation parties feel as though they should not happen. I have heard from some people that they do not want to celebrate a party because they do not feel as though they are really seniors. I am among one of those people.
But for other seniors, they cannot wait to celebrate with their family and friends the end of the craziest year of school and life.
Although this pandemic has taught us many things, like that we are resilient, this pandemic has come with many hardships. Many have lost family members or dear friends to this virus.
I wonder how much better my senior year could have been without the oncoming of this pandemic. And if things will ever go back to the way they were before all this tragedy. And for those of us who are still grateful that we are getting anything, we still wish we could have been able to do this the “normal” way.