note: 9/11 TW

Oh, 2020 Seniors. I’m so sorry your final year in school has been disrupted. You had so much excitement and positivity going into this year. You were planning your graduation and celebration parties. Senior prom was coming up and you just got the courage to ask your date. Maybe you got your first job to save some money for college or to move out. But now you’re finishing school from home, Facetiming your friends, making the best Tik Tok videos.

I can say I almost know how you feel. I was entering my senior year in 2001 when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers and another into the Pentagon. You weren’t born yet. America entered a war that year and has lasted your entire life. It feels like we’re going to hell in a handbasket. The world might have always been this way, and maybe we’ve grown up and gained a little more perspective. I don’t know, I’m a Millenial. But I hope after all this is over and we’re able to be close to our friends and family, that we will have learned something. That we heal and become more compassionate and understanding and take care of each other. I hope for your sake and for the world’s sake.

This is Tate. We’re cousins, I think? (The generation tree confuses me a bit.) Tate has a beautiful spirit and a smile that can brighten any room he walks into no matter how big the room is. There’s a lot of serious in some of these photos, because of course. But when I pulled out the corny jokes, Tate humored me by laughing at them. I appreciate that.

We visited a few colorful spots of downtown Tacoma to match Tate’s colorful personality.

My hope for Tate and the Class of 2020:
Don’t let this pandemic squash your enthusiasm for life and the future. Before turning 18, you have already fought climate change and gun control, LGBTQ+ rights, brown and black people’s lives, and countless other causes. Stay strong, stay bold, but take rests when you need to. You ARE our future and have the power. I’ll be fighting with you the whole way.