The time has come to say goodbye

The time has come to say goodbye.

Today, we reach the end of another school year. Tomorrow, for Faith Christian High School, summer vacation will begin, the senior class will graduate and this year will remain with us only as a memory.

But what a memory!

Today, the slamming of lockers and thunks of stacks of old papers landing in the trash fill the hallways as the students empty out their lockers and discover that study guide they lost three months ago, or the black goo in a plastic baggie that used to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Finals are finally over, and everyone has that spring in their step and spark in their eye that betrays their excitement about sleeping in tomorrow.

Aside from cleaning away the stress of this school year, sharing memories is always an important part of these last few weeks.

To kick it off, our much-anticipated and long-awaited yearbooks finally arrived. Everywhere, students have been poring over them, searching for pictures of themselves and signing all of their friends' books between finals, leaving messages for them to treasure in the years to come.

The student body gathered for our traditional end-of-year slide show on Friday, which was the seniors' last day. The fun pictures and memories of the year were greeted with cheers and applause.

When the portion of the slide show featuring the seniors came on, everyone had fun guessing which senior matched each baby picture before the names appeared, amazed at how similar to their baby pictures some of them looked, and reminiscing with old pictures from junior high and earlier high school years.

The senior class finished school and finals a week early to spend a few days at Disneyland, Universal Studios and on the Los Angeles beaches enjoying each other's company. For some, it was finally sinking in that these were our last days together as a class, and that we are actually about to leave high school. "It's bittersweet," said senior and school president Rob Murphy.

The seniors and their parents also gathered for baccalaureate on Sunday. The room flowed with emotion as teacher Scott Bicknell blessed the students on behalf of the staff, followed by individual blessings from parents to students.

One by one, parents and families addressed their student in front of the crowd, reminiscing, giving encouragement and wisdom and, most importantly, a given blessing and admonition to be strong in the Lord in the years ahead. Many tears were shed as both parents and students recognized that the teens are entering the adult world.

Now, at last, it is time to say goodbye, but even as we part, we know that we will always remember this year in our lives.

Katherine McLain is a senior at Faith Christian High School. This is her final column for the Education section.