A Prayer and Letter by Peter Sackey, Class of 2022
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for all you have done for me and my family. I thank you for bringing this far in times like these. Even though I have been through a lot this 2019-2020 school year, you have continued to strengthen me and protect me. I pray that after this school year, there will be a change in this world. I ask that you remove this virus from the earth, the same virus that took my father’s life, may it be removed. All these other negative things going on: police brutality, looting, unpeaceful protesting(in certain areas), deadly hornets, etc. may they be wiped away from this earth in Jesus’s name. I ask that peace shall be brought forth before us. As the year continues to go on, I ask that you will continue to guide and protect my family and me, so that we may live to see the next year.
In Jesus’s Name, I pray-AMEN!!!
Dear Peter A.K.A FLY GUY,
Your sophomore year at Lawrenceville was a rough year for you. it started off with your injury, which caused you to miss a lot of days from school. After returning you had trouble catching up with work and getting back on track in your classes, so you were always behind. After you had returned from winter break, you caught the flu for a short period of time, but it still affected your preparations for finals week by also causing you to miss some classes. Then everything started to go downhill. Once you returned home for spring break, the coronavirus pandemic really began to breakout and everybody all over America, all over the world was forced to be put in quarantine. A week or two into quarantine, your father was diagnosed with the virus, COVID-19(coronavirus). He was held in the hospital for a week before we found out that he had the virus and he ended up getting intubated because he had trouble with his breathing considering his lungs were affected. On April 8, 2020, your dad passed. It was tough on you and your family for sure, but we had people around us to support. The Lawrenceville community also had your back. People who you had never had an encounter with, sent their condolences and donated to help your family raise money so that y’all could give your father and husband a proper burial and y’all were able too. After the passing of your father, things started to really change. A black man, who goes by the name George Floyd, was murdered by a white police officer who placed his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for no exact reason at all.
Student, Class of 2022
"For the pandemic, I got a job at Genesis Biotechnology Group. The company is one of the labs that are handling the virus and works on finding a cure. My role is data entry. I am given information on a patient and enter it into a system that goes out to the other labs and hospitals around the country to give the patients their results."
~Cameren Berry, Class of 2023
Kate Reilly, Class of 2021
"A pandemic is this special brand of a tragedy, the kind that can only be known to the generations that experienced it. It turns all its victims into sharks; stop moving and you’ll die. Except for us, it’s not the water flowing backward into our lungs; it’s the oppressive thought of what might already be hiding in there. Asymptomatic. All you can do is lie on your back in the balmy air and plums of fear and try to breathe as best you can because if you can’t, you’re screwed."
~ Student, Class of 2021
Bearing Witness to COVID
by Hartley Ju, Class of 2023
The airport has no one mingling,
Everyone’s masked but it’s not halloween.
I’ve sat for hours but I don’t see plane wings,
The atmosphere speaks of a theme.
Stores have died in a morbidly vivacious spring,
People too, silently without a scream.
The plane arrives, the announcement rings,
The flight starts, and the plane starts to lean.
A nap and we’re here, home? The contrary.
I’m in Taipei. I'm alone, I take a seat.
Phone service is down, but my parents are up.
We’re both anxious, for sixteen hours I’m stuck.
The flight was cancelled, glad my mom had foresight,
with different companies she had booked more flights.
