The Last Day

by Chris Walden

            The sun rises, over everyone’s green lawns. The cool dawn air carries the smells and sounds related with spring.

            The sun rises, still carrying the time and light that everything depends on; a constant reminder of the continuous and nostalgic feelings of time.

            It feels like just another day. Another day of work, another day of sleepiness, another day of dread. Another day of school. Yet the pain of moving on is lessened by the prospect that all good things must come to an end. Not simply is it another day of school – it is the last day of school.

           

            It’s hard not to think about. The hallways are devoid of former seniors. My classmates and I have filled those shoes, yet it doesn’t feel right. Where has all the happiness of leaving school gone to? If it’s our last day, where’s all the balloons and confetti? It’s a very painful day.

            We take our finals today, but for some reason, I’m not worried about them. It doesn’t feel right, I tell you. Doesn’t it define a typical student to resent school, and to embrace individual freedom?

            Leaving this class for another year doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like a saddened retirement party. How ironic; I feel the sad side of leaving the school forever, when the teachers around me in the English office are the ones leaving us behind. They treat today just like another day of school. There are exceptions, of course.

            Yet it doesn’t feel right. The teachers I received so much happiness and humor from, they’re leaving. Permanently. And yet they can treat today like any other. I can only guess that the answer to my inquiry is Time. These teachers, these veterans of the sunrises and sunsets have lived their whole lives in the daylight of their careers.

            I feel like I’m a part of that retiring class of teachers, leaving behind another witty part of myself for the incoming seniors to chew on. Mr. Anderson just cracked another joke about having one less thing to do. I wonder to myself whether or not he’ll be glad he left our school a year from now. Every teacher gave to the community, and loved the party they were a part of for so many years.     

            Yet, they too, must retire from the great ballet of life. From the elaborate dance they’ve made their line of work appear to be. Mr. Anderson, I know, will enjoy his everlasting vacation. He’s had a hard life, and, now that I think of it, so have all the other teachers. My previous predilection towards a teacher no longer matters.

            Mr. Fox just said that what he was working on was one of only two things left on his list. He is one of the many witty, wise and great teachers that has graced our school’s stage of education and excellence. I can’t understand why I, a student, an incoming senior, would or should feel sadness on the day of everyone’s liberation.

            It’s like the last few minutes of the play Our Town. It’s the nostalgic memories of everything that happened in this English office – and not just during my stay here. Why is this happening while I’m still here? Why are they leaving when I can still feel their personalities squirming inside of my own? It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right.

            I don’t have much time left. My math final approaches as it is carried as a passenger in the fancy limo Time disguises our destiny as. I will not enjoy leaving the English office. For after the math final, this office will be empty – its desks once occupied by legendary professors will be vacant to fresh teachers like myself. Only they have been veterans of the battle of Time longer than I have.

            It only took me halfway through this year, my junior year, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and who I really was. Who I am. I feel that my slight yet uneasy understanding of the river of Time has aged me some more than my peers, that perhaps I have matured in just one field of my personality. Has this level of temporary maturity caused me, as a student, to feel sentimental about the last day of school?

            I doubt age or maturity has anything to do with it, now that I try to relax. I’m trying to keep from getting teary-eyed among my friends. Do they realize what today means to them, as well as the rest of the school? Can they possibly understand what I’m feeling or why I feel this way? I tell them “It doesn’t feel right.”

            Time is invulnerable. No matter how important our days have been, no matter how much of an impact we, as human beings, have on the world around us, Time will remain unaffected. Time brings with it the ‘sign of the times’: the rising and setting sun.

Yet in this final hour of the time that I spend with the teachers I treat as my best friends, I feel that Time is also the great photo studio. Within its limitless boundaries, Time provides an infinite number of moments for which we can create memories out of. Like all the vacations I have taken, and all the tear-jerking moments of my life, I will remember this last day.

Why should I worry so much about one day? Why should I worry so much about little things? And as Mr. Anderson hugs Mr. Fox from behind, (refraining from kissing him as a part of a joke), I feel like Mr. Anderson has hugged me. Everyone in the English office seems to be feeling better, living their last day with a renewed vitality provided by a witty piece of humor. Mr. Fox asked me if I didn’t mind witnessing it. I told him it didn’t bother me at all – that I loved that kind of stuff. Dozens of hugs ensue thanks to the explosion of emotions. Yet it is a hilarious combination of ‘good times’, only as the greatest English teachers, no – the greatest veterans of Time could produce.

Mr. Anderson was telling us about stopping by McDonalds for breakfast. He was standing in line with another old guy, and they got to talking. Mr. Anderson told him it was his last day at work. The old man pursued the topic, and Mr. Anderson replied to the old man that he was indeed retiring. In a flurry of excitement, the old man got the attention of the cashier, and told him “I gotta buy this man breakfast!” Everyone laughs, and Anderson continues to tell us he met another teacher in Caribou Coffee not long after, and that she bought him a free coffee as well. Sounds like a good last day to me.

For the first time today, it finally feels right.