End of the School Year

I really don’t like this at all.  I mean, yeah, I’m looking forward to my summer schedule which has more time for writing, but the big, huge drawback to the school year ending is called graduation.

It’s what we push kids toward, and what we honestly hope they’ll achieve, but when the moment comes that they walk down that aisle in those caps and gowns, I have a rush of panic.  All I can think is, “What did we forget to teach them?”  The real world isn’t always a kind and gentle place, even for “regular” people.  It holds all kinds of horrors for those who face it with disabilities.

Are they ready?  What will happen to them out there?  Will they be discriminated against, hurt, or worse? And most importantly, will they ever be loved as  much as we’ve loved, nurtured, and protected them?

This week, I had to say goodbye forever to a young lady I’ve worked with every day for five years.  I admit, when she walked out of our room, just the way she has hundreds of times, except that this time, she’ll never come back, I burst into tears.

No, Pomp and Circumstance is not my favorite piece of music.

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