Without warning within a few months we were put on halt first it was China, then Italy, and soon America followed suit. This pandemic has affected the lives of so many people, and it will continue to do so. Unemployment rates are at an all-time high, the world's next-generation and its teachers have been tasked with picking up virtual learning, social connections are at a minimum, and most importantly the deaths of over 100,000 (as of April 8th 2020) great people who our communities held dearly. The human race is aching right now and our worst and best have come out of this crisis, but the only way we can survive this is by going through the storm together facing our fate and by doing this we can make it through the storm stronger than before.

            Only a few weeks before the inevitable vacancy of our school I read an excerpt from Haruki Murakami’s book Kafka On The Shore in the WW Fenn Speaking Contest Finals and it talked about fate and the storm and how you need to face it to “Step right into the storm closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in”. Now as I look back I wonder whether it was fate that I read that piece or a warning from the god of the oncoming storm of COVID -19. One essential lesson I learned from that piece is that we can’t sit back and let it pass because it will simply “change directions” or get worse we have to take action together and today everyone can play there part by staying home and self quarantining to keep the virus from spreading. While this won’t cure the virus it is what we can do right now, it is what we have to do, this virus will cause pain and cause lots of death But we must face it by going through it and it will not be without a price... 

“People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” [Kafka On The Shore By Haruki Murakami] 

We can only face this storm together and by facing it together we can walk out of the storm, the pandemic stronger then we were before. 

     Facing this storm will be no easy task and we must proceed with caution as we except it to throw many more challenges our way, but only together can we do this, by walking straight through the storm together, and in doing that we will come out stronger and as survivors.