One Hour

"You will have one hour to get what you need out of the building to continue teaching until April 17th, maybe longer."


This is the message I received from my administration on Friday. It took my breath for a minute because it was the first time I had seen my reality in print. April 17th. Four weeks from now. Granted one week is spring break and I wouldn't be working anyway, but one week, that's all I needed to recharge and get ready to have the best end of the year ever. Four weeks...now that's too much. And it was going to be the best end of year ever, not because I had spent the last 2 months planning special things throughout the last month and a half of school, which I had, but because of my kids. You see, this year I have the class. Everyone once in a while as a teacher you get a class that just gels so perfectly together that it's nothing short of magic. The kids all get along, they make each other laugh, they get my jokes, and they are absolutely brilliant. It's special, and while I have loved all of my classes, and all of my students this year is just different, and I may not get any closure.

We are only one week into this quarantine and my students have already lost so much. Their 5th grade music program was cancelled, our field trip was cancelled, and now our overnight 5th grade camping field trip has been cancelled. To make it worse, on that  last Friday my daughter had strep throat, my husband was out of town, and I left hurriedly to take her to the doctor while my students were in art. I didn't even tell them goodbye before I left. I was paying attention and ready to head back up to the school if we got news that we wouldn't be back for a while, but our governor waited until Sunday to tell us we wouldn't be back in school for 2 weeks, now 5.

My heart is so sad. I miss them more than they'll ever know. I, of course, miss seeing their sweet faces everyday, and getting my daily hugs that I could absolutely count on from a certain few students, but I miss the little things too. I miss having to keep tabs on the kid that liked to sneak out in the hallway 2 minutes before the bell rings in the afternoon. I miss our morning talks during breakfast in the classroom. I miss their side conversations and learning more about their personalities from them. I miss watching them play at recess. I miss looking up and seeing tik-tok dances underway. I miss the kids that like to stand next to me while they're working, or sit in my chair, or sit at my desk and work behind me, or just come up and talk to me and look through my drawers. (ha!) I miss their jokes. I miss their laughs. I miss tapping on the shoe of the kiddo that sits across from me at morning meetings because she won't stop talking or laughing.I miss the kiddo that flops down at morning meeting and leans on me with all her might.  I miss the kiddo always asking if there are any snacks, I even miss them trying to "steal" my lemonade packets. I miss seeing the doodles on the desk of my ridiculously talented kids.I miss reading to them.  I miss the smiles and snickers I see and hear when they've caught me saying "all the things..." again, because apparently I say "all the things" all the time! All of these things and so many more. Little things that I don't want to forget.

But, this year has also made me so happy. I'm so happy I did all of the things I questioned myself about as I do once testing season approaches. I'm always thinking "Did I do enough?" "Did they learn everything they needed to?" " Could I have done anything more?" However, now because of this situation I think back and I am so happy. I am so happy that sometimes (ok most of the time) our morning meetings ran long because they wanted to share ev-er-y-thing about their weekend. I am happy that every morning I could hear "Good morning Mrs. Varnell!" ringing out over the noisy gym every morning I had duty. I'm happy that I was able spend time in the choir room with them twice a week, singing and watching them do something that they love outside of academics. I'm happy I was able to watch as many soccer and  basketball games as possible in the fall. Because spring soccer, and basketball are cancelled. I'm so happy instead of jumping into our afternoon work right away I routinely spent 10 minutes talking to the kids that would come to my desk. So happy that I spent time talking to them when they came to me,  even if we got sidetracked sometimes. We did a lot of things right this year. Now my only questions are "Did I care enough?" " Do they know how much I care about each and every one of them?"

So today...today I walked into my room knowing I only had one hour to take my professional life with me. However, once I walked into the room I set down my key like I always do, and I walked around the room three times, just looking. Looking at the desks, and thinking about my kids. Laughing at the empty snack wrapper that was left in my window, smiled as I cleaned out old oranges out of a cubby, and picked up the math binders that inevitably always make their way to the floor by the end of the day, and plugged in the Chromebook for the kiddo that never does. And then I packed. I didn't start packing my curriculum, or my books. I didn't even grab my flair pens first. I grabbed a picture that was drawn for me. I grabbed a little red paper box that a student made for my that held my chapstick all year. I packed cactus number 2, and their data binder with all of the sweet notes they have given me this year. I brought home a knitted ribbon that one of my kids made for me that will now adorn my white board. I grabbed the leftover candy from Valentine's Day that they had begged me for, and the box of smarties (although that is a lot lighter than when I left it that Friday 😏).I snapped a picture of a poster they had made for me, and then and only then did I grab my curriculum and supplies.

And so while it may be a while before we are all together again I am so thankful for technology and that I am able to keep up with them a little bit even if it just through a screen. I know we will all work hard for the remainder of the school year no matter how it looks. And, I know we will all be okay in the end. So, until then my hope and prayer is that we can get back to normal before school is out, please at least give me May. Going through this together will only make us stronger. It will absolutely be a school year we will never forget.