Memorable grad awaits Class of 2020

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/05/2020 (2007 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Near the end of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic-themed thriller Contagion, there is a sweet scene in which Matt Damon’s character surprises his daughter with a living-room prom for two. She puts on her dress, and finds that the living room — four walls she’s seen a lot of during lockdown— has been transformed by fairy lights and streamers. The furniture has been moved aside to make space to dance. Her boyfriend arrives, and shows proof of vaccine to get in.

This scene might serve as a template for the Class of 2020, whose graduations in June will look a lot different this year owing to the coronavirus crisis.

Some Grade 12 students have not accepted this. Several British Columbia and Ontario students have launched petitions, imploring that traditional grad ceremonies and celebrations be postponed instead of moved online.

High school seniors are absolutely within their rights to feel frustrated and disappointed. High school graduation is a milestone, a rite of passage; it’s the stuff of countless coming-of-age movies that tell you this is meant to be a night to remember — maybe the last night all of you will be together, in the same place, at the same time. It’s the bridge between childhood and The Real World.

Mourning this loss is understandable. This year’s graduating class has, undoubtedly, received a tough crash course in Real World 101: life is unfair, and things don’t always go how you’ve planned — or, at least, how you imagined. Which, according to Real World Lesson No. 2, is true of most milestone events that are gilded with sky-high expectations and societal pressures.

All over the world, people are making compromises in the name of social distancing, forgoing celebrations, once-in-a-lifetime vacations, weddings, baby showers, 50th-birthday barbecues — all of it. And all of it stings, even if it’s the right thing to do.

But perhaps there’s something particularly painful about an unceremonious end to high school. So many of life’s celebrations are about the beginnings of things — birth, marriage, another trip around the sun. Graduation is the end of a chapter, a chapter that feels like a whole book when you’re 18 years old.

Still, Grade 12 students should not let the lack of parties and pomp and circumstance take away from their accomplishment — one that is still worth celebrating. Grad still has the chance to be special — more special, even — with a little creativity. Maybe that looks like a Zoom dance party; maybe it looks like putting on the dress or suit you’ve been dreaming about wearing for months, and doing a backyard photo shoot.

Maybe it looks like a quiet dinner. Maybe it looks like lawns filled with signs, congratulating the seniors who have worked so hard but have had their last year of high school cut short. Maybe, in this most strange of graduating years, it looks like a living-room prom.

This pandemic has thrust a generation of teenagers headfirst into the anxieties of adulthood. But this is a chance to build resilience. Real World Lesson No. 3: the pandemic won’t define your generation, Class of 2020. How you respond to it will.

You are a part of history. In fact, you might find your grad — whatever it ends up looking like — will be more memorable than most.