even in all the rain! I think it was a sign that we were really ready to go above and beyond as a group to still be together and support each other’s boys.” In June 2021, exactly one year after the first Zoom ice-breaker, the entire class met at the family winery of Michelle and Michael Hanna ’94 to celebrate the birthdays of three boys in the class together. In the beautiful Napa sun, many parents commented on how close they felt to each other. Someone commented that it felt like a beautiful ending— certainly not for all our uncertainties but for an amazing year for the boys that no one could have envisioned a year before. Very early on in the school year, parents created a WhatsApp text group to communicate, leading to numerous spontaneous playdates and parent meet-ups. Laurie Burns notes, “lunch breaks and SeeSaw sessions were met with a flurry on the parent text chain finding the closest parks for the kids to climb trees and share jokes with each other . T he tight bonds we as parents created during soccer practices, park playdates, birthday parties, and beach days continued into those weeks away from school to bring joy to our boys’ days.”
Re-reading these archived WhatsApp messages today, I was struck by the timeline of all the things that happened in one short year (remember “AQI”?). But mostly, I was moved by the discrete stages of the collective emotional journey we took together. Uncertainty coalesces to a feeling of cautious optimism and growing hope—there is a progression of photos, recipes, jokes, and discussions about school and summer camps—trending asymptotically toward normalcy. And a lot of emojis. On December 31, 2020, Jared, a doctor, posted a picture of himself receiving the vaccine with a big smile and thumbs-up. Among the many responses, the laughing/crying emoji felt especially resonant and poignant. Maybe these messages will someday be rediscovered by the boys in the class in the digital warehouse as a kind of time capsule and a cache of mini love letters from their parents from the pandemic year. A sense of commitment, optimism and gratitude pervades, along with vulnerability, resilience and creativity. And that, hopefully, will be the lasting legacy of this extraordinary year.
FALL 2021 • RED & GOLD | 19
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