The announcement came at 11:30 on Friday morning: New York schools would be closed for the year.

It wasn’t a surprise, of course. I didn’t think I had a shred of expectation that we might return in June— I even signed up for an online class on Thursday afternoons for the month of May, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to finish it if we went back. Yet the announcement brought me a great wave of sadness, pain, and grief.

It wasn’t for myself or my family. I think I’d already accepted it for us– my son wouldn’t be finishing his second grade year; my husband and I wouldn’t be conducting our spring concerts; my daughter wouldn’t be going back to daycare. We had each other; that felt like enough.

No, I was grieving for my students, former students, and kids just like them across my district and the entirety of the state. All the celebrations they’d anticipated, all the closure they’d needed, would not be happening. All the kids who loved school, especially the ones for whom school was a safe space. I cried for them. I ached for them. I’m still struggling with the burden of that emotion, five days later.

It’s no surprise that I’m feeling so deeply for these kids. If there’s a stage in life that I got stuck, it was my teen years at school. Because of the cancer, I missed out on things too: field trips, sleepovers, an entire marching band season. Not a graduation, or a prom, or the end of a school year. But I still have enough experience with this type of loss, at this age, that I know how much it hurts. And I’m feeling it right along with them.

Sometimes losing out on something, as a collective generation, makes that generation stronger. Sometimes loss can be character-building and contribute to greater gratitude in individuals when normalcy is restored. But these are big-picture concepts. They don’t do much to soothe a grief and loss this deep, at this age.

The kids will be fine, I know that. I was fine too. Not just fine– blessed. But did I ever get over losing that marching band season? Did I ever feel as much a part of my high school community because I was sometimes left out? I’m not sure that’s something you ever forget.