Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Goodbyes are Hard

Today in my 3rd grade class, we watched "Big Miracle"--Drew Barrymore's 2012 flick set in 1988 about 3 whales trapped in ice in Barrow, Alaska.  My kids in my class voiced yesterday that they were bummed we never watched that when we read the book "A Symphony of Whales" by Steve Schuch earlier in the year as the two are loosely related.  So today, we watched it and cheered for Fred, Wilma, and BamBam.

[Spoiler alert--both the book and the movie are phenomenal.]

Yesterday we did a scenic route walk around campus on the way to Spanish, via the greenhouse & the nature trail. We snacked on the wholesome goodness of sugar snap peas in the greenhouse. Why did we do all this? Because we could.  Because soon, we won't be able to.

Monday, the 5th graders went out on the Magothy River via canoes and spent the day, paddling away, learning about the sights and sounds they saw along the way.  Now THAT is a science class!


 Monday too, we had a graduation of sorts.  Not "the real" graduation, as that is yet ahead for our 5th graders, just a few days away.  But a commencement for the PreK--4th graders, a celebration (completee with certificates) of their years they spent at Eagle Cove School, here in our last week prior to closing after 58 years. During that semi-commencement, our Head of School spoke of our mission statement--how Eagle Cove School has been and IS a triumvirate of academic excellence, community involvement, and environmental stewardship.  She related us to "the 'greenest' school in Maryland."  It's hard to fathom, after that, that we only have 3 more days of school...ever.  It continues to beg the question over the last 5 months--how can something so good be closing??  Yet, numbers of kids and lack of enough tuition payments, over time, don't answer that question.




On Monday, smack dab in the middle of the commencement the Parents' Association whisked in to pay tribute to the teachers (all well and good if I didn't know I was still yet to give a surprise presentation to our Head.  Insert tears and "incoherent speech amidst tears" here!).  To each teacher the PA gave a print of the tree at the center of the school's driveway, with a fingerprint from each current child being a leaf on the tree.  Add in, they included a misty-eyed note on the back of a postcard with my daughter's artistic gift to our head when she learned of our closing.  There's a point when misty eyes turn into a true and total teary era, and it's somewhere between!!  It's hard to be so touched, so proud, so sad, and so feeling the loss all simultaneously.  Nowhere in my mind's eye did I think Monday would begin that way!!

So the countdown continues with Field Day and another day being the only things standing between now and graduation.  The 5th graders were mine 2 years ago.  Their speeches, no doubt, will make me both laugh and cry.

It's hard saying goodbye to someone and something you love.  Something so true and so good, and will be so missed.


Pics from:  my camera & ECS art work from Delaney  Dabrowka & Board of Trustee 
"Big Miracle" from http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjEzNTg5MjA5NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjk0MTk5Ng@@._V1_SX214_AL_.jpg

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