Goodbye Oakview!!

“Today is the last drive to Oakview,” I say to the tired and sleepy 14 year-old in the passenger seat as we approach the middle school’s parking loop. I have driven through this loop a countless number of times to deliver forgotten lunches or instruments, take the kids to school when they missed the bus, or picked them up from art club. But today is the last time I will be taking this route.

I am filled with a sense of melancholy. Oakview Middle School has been Tracy’s home for the last three years and was the home of his brother for the three years before him. So for the past six years Oakview has been my home too. It has been the building that has housed, formed and grown my two teenage sons. It has been the venue in which I chaperoned Friends and Fun nights and attended band concerts and award ceremonies. It has employed the teachers who I have come to know through emails and conferences and field trips.

No one could have expected the last day at the school to look like this. Unlike every other last day of school there is not a mess of students crowding the halls, giving high fives, and furiously trying to get in one last yearbook signing. There is not a gathering of parents and teachers and administrators clapping for the 8^th graders as they exit the doors of the school for the last time, a time-honored tradition of the Lake Orion School system. There is not a train of yellow buses lined up to take their progeny home for the last time.

Today the school looks lonely. There’s a smattering of cars in the parking lot but not a person or student in sight. I’m not surprised. Because of COVID-19 the school had to assign blocks of time for the kids to come to school to clean out their lockers, and Tracy had the early morning slot. He hasn’t seen this time of day in months. From the lack of students I can assume his peers with last names that begin with A-B haven’t either.

He puts on his mask and picks up his bag of books and band music and carries them into the school where he will empty the contents into bins along the wall and then fill the bag up again with the contents of a school locker he hasn’t seen in three months. Who knows what lurks in there?

As I sit in the parking lot and wait for him, a wave of sadness rolls over me. I am surprised – I did not expect to be so affected by this one little drive. As far as I was concerned school was over three months ago. But the enormity of this moment, that I won’t be coming back, that my baby is going to be in high school next year (and my oldest will be a senior!!) threatens to unmoor me.

When Michael finished 8^th grade there was a plethora of activities to mark the occasion: the color run, Lewis and Clark days, 8^th grade band concert, awards ceremony, and 8^th grade celebration. It was a time of finality; there was a day when we could say “You’re done with middle school; now you’re an official high schooler.” With Tracy, we did not get that closure. He had none of those celebrations, for, due to COVID-19, his last true day of school was March 12^th.

So much has happened in his three years here. From my safe place in the parking lot I look into the 6^th grade hallway and think back to the beginning of middle school, when that small kid asked me to attend his orientation day (the parents were invited) for moral support. I watched as his happy smile engaged others; he was eager to make new friends and learn new things. I saw the pride he felt in turning in his trumpet for the much harder oboe. I listened as he told me the names of the friends in his classes.

As I stare at the mural on the inside of the school that says “Be Awesome Today!” I remember all the great teachers Tracy has had, from his 6^th grade science teacher who told us how much she enjoyed Tracy’s vibrancy and color to this year’s math teacher who went above and beyond to make sure he was finally put in the math class that was right for him. Some of these teachers I have known for 6 years because Michael had them too. What great leadership Tracy has had as role models, especially the principal who sent a weekly newsletter home to parents telling us how awesome our kids are and how much she enjoyed being a part of their lives. I will miss her positive attitude and those newsletters, sigh.

Even though I feel sad, I’m kind of glad it’s over. Middle school is a soup of stinky, moody, angry, and sad hormones that push and pull kids like taffy, stretching them in every way and causing a lot of mental, emotional, and physical growth. Even though Tracy made new friends and learned a ton of new things, these past three years haven’t been easy on him, especially this last one. The school year of 2019-2020 doled out more heartbreak for the 8^th graders of Oakview than almost anyone can bear in a lifetime.

Just as they were getting into the stride of their last year of middle school they had to pause in their learning about math and science and study a subject that had not been in the curriculum – death and loss. In November a dear classmate suddenly and tragically lost her life, and so they had to deal with incredible grief and sadness. Tracy took it particularly hard because he had known her since Kindergarten.

As winter progressed I saw as he tried to regain some sense of normalcy at school, but could tell that he and many of his peers were just done, clocked out of school permanently. Perhaps it was too much to look upon the empty chair of their friend every day. Enough was enough, or so they thought.

In March the pandemic hit and middle school was over just like that, a pause that caused the 8^th graders to shift their way of being once again. Kids who thrive on being around their friends were stuck home with their parents, having to do “optional” homework and attend “suggested” online classes, another level of new normal. Despite the warm, loving and caring presence (both in person and online) of the Oakview teachers and principal, the grief, loss, tragedy, and challenges of this year have molded him and his peers in a way that I don’t think we can even yet define.

However, if there’s anything I have learned from Tracy and his class of 2024, it’s that when you get knocked down you keep getting up, again and again and again. That’s resilience, a term that has been used for his class. I think it is apt, for these kids have had to face many challenges, and will most likely continue to do so as even the near future is a relative unknown.

This year has been hard on everyone. We are living through difficult and turbulent times. School is not ending in the manner we’re used to, loads of people are unemployed, the virus threatens to linger for months if not years, and there is civil unrest throughout our country and in the world. Uncertainty is spreading as fast as the virus.

But I have hope for the future, because I know that in a few months’ time school will begin again, high school, a new chapter for Tracy and his peers. And while we don’t know yet what that schooling will look like, we do know the students will continue on their path of learning anyway. Because they are brave, tough, and resilient.

I watch Tracy come down the stairs, his last flight of middle school. He collects his yearbook from a teacher and I watch him come through the doors of Oakview for the last time. He’s a far cry from the happy-go-lucky 6^th grader who first walked the halls 3 years ago. He’s much, much taller and leaner, with chin-length multicolored hair and a slow, long stride, and a very different attitude towards life. While I feel sad our middle school lives are over, I know he is happy to be done.

It would embarrass him too much if I were to get out of the car and clap for him. So I do it from the driver’s seat – I wipe my tears away, put on a big smile, and shout “Congratulations!” as he opens the passenger door. He rolls his eyes at me in his typical teen manner, but I can see the spark of a smile growing.

It’s too early for Dairy Queen to be open, but I want to mark this occasion in some special way. We have plenty of ice cream at home though, so I make a very unexpected and very much appreciated move.

“Ice cream sundae for breakfast?” I ask.

The smile grows into a great big grin. It’s the only answer I need.

We drive through the parking loop for the very last time, past the front entrance, past the American flag waving proudly as always, and past the sign that reads “Oakview Middle School, Established 2002”.

"Goodbye Oakview," I whisper. “Thanks for everything!!”

This post is dedicated to all the teachers out there, not just the ones at Oakview, who made it through this challenging year and kept our kids on track emotionally, socially, and mentally.