You may be familiar with the feeling of reading through a history book or watching a historical documentary and thinking, “Wow. What a time it must have been to live through this.” If you’re lucky, you have a family member or friend who lived through some of these times – be it World War II, the tumultuous years of the 1960s, etc. – and you may benefit greatly from the context provided by their experience.

While every graduating high school class is unique in its own way, very few will be able to share the experience of the class of 2020 – the experience of actively living in and persevering through a moment of turmoil that will be written about in history books for many years to come, happening at the same moment as your first foray into the world as a young adult.

This is not to say that certain classes aren’t touched by tragedies. Unfortunately, many classes are marred by acts of violence that will be remembered decades from now. However, no graduating class in recent history has been so unified, across the entire nation and world, in its mutual experience of everything changing – from how they go to school, to how they live their lives and, in the big picture, to what world they look forward into entering – as the class of 2020.

Perseverance is a theme you’ll often hear in graduation speeches, but the class of 2020 will be forced to epitomize this concept in a way that other graduating classes have never had to before. They will be forced to persevere through a national divide more pronounced than it has been in over 50 years and through an unprecedented health crisis that will have unfathomable social and economic implications for many years to come.

More abstractly, but still important, they’ll have to persevere through their own internal disappointment that the home stretch of their final year of high school – what they will learn, or perhaps already know, should have been one of the most carefree and enjoyable stretches of time of their lives – was ripped away from them in a most unceremonious and unpredictable way. They won’t get the traditional “graduation moment” or even get to throw the graduation party they have rightly earned.

While this may seem utterly defeating and deflating, we have to believe that the class of 2020 is destined for some kind of greatness. The toughest, most resilient individuals among us were not built following a path of least resistance, but rather they were forged in a fire of adversity and uncertainty that tested them and forced them to endure. We have no doubt that this most unfortunate ending to their high school experience will only leave many in the class of 2020 even hungrier to claw their way towards a happier one in the future.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken much from many of us, including the lives of loved ones. It has shown, in no uncertain terms, that no freedoms we enjoy or privileges we possess are permanent. Things can change in an instant, for better or worse. As the world continues to experience increasing tensions at home and abroad, we are going to need many generations of young adults who understand this extremely important lesson. None will understand it better than the class of 2020.

Our hearts go out to the students in Rhode Island and beyond who have lost out on precious moments normally attributed to the end of their high school careers. We know that nothing can make that pain easier. However, we would recommend that you draw strength from the fact that no other class will be able to tell the story that you are currently writing when someone many years later reads about 2020 and inevitably wonders to themselves, “Wow. What a time it must have been to live through this.”