The Final Friday

Friday. The longed for, yet dreaded day. A bitter-sweet moment in time. It was the last day of school. The last day of my first year as a teacher. I woke up in a very sullen mood, not wanting to go to school (as if my lack of attendance would stop the year from coming to an end!). But I went, pasted a smile on my face, and was determined to enjoy every last moment with my students. And I did. We signed yearbooks. We played dodge-ball, tag, and basket-ball. We ate, laughed and hugged. There were so many happy moments through out the day, but I was determined not to think about the fact that it would soon be over and allow myself the privilege of crying. We had our last Joint Worship together as a school. Grant led song service for the last time. The students tried to drive me crazy for the last time. They cleaned out their desks and walked out of the room for the last time. The school year is over. My job is done. It left a big, empty feeling in the middle of my heart. I had come to love those kids. I had spent countless hours in the past 10 months with those kids. And now I had said goodbye and watched them all walk away. Later that afternoon, after hours of cleaning, I stood in the middle of my empty classroom. Their books were all in neat piles off to one side, the desks stacked along another wall. Nothing left on the walls - only the blank white walls staring back at me. It was almost a surreal feeling, it took me back to when I first stepped foot in my classroom at the beginning of the year. It was almost like time had stood still, nothing had happened, and I was still standing there in the middle of my empty classroom.

Although I'm coming back for another year, this year is over. I will never have the same class or the exact same students. I will never have the same co-workers or same memories. Everything from this year has come and gone and is now over. In a few hours everyone will start saying the final goodbyes and leaving this little rock in the middle of the Pacific. It's going to be sad, it'll feel so final. But we have memories - many happy memories. I think God gave us memories so we'd have something to hold on to until we can all be together again.