Different schools

By Naomi, Age 12

When my father told my brother and I we had to stay home from school, we jumped up and down, and played Minecraft until 10 PM. I was in 4th grade and was always being bullied by someone in the grade, so of course, I was excited. But I also had people I knew since we started kindergarten together. It was seven years at one school. You know everyone when you attend a school for that many years. Then you graduate to middle school and never see them again, without getting to say goodbye, or to know their number, or what middle school they were going to. And you lose most of the people you know, without seeing their faces for two years. And everyday I was reassured by my teacher, that “We will be in person in one week!” She said that for 70 days. And I only had my father, because my mother was tending
to my grandmother whose dementia was growing stronger by the day. She would come one day… and I would not know when I would see her again. It could be days… weeks… a month… and my mind was stuck on the idea that… I forgot what my grandmother sounded like.