I had the great honor of being invited to sit in on Bishop Maginn High School’s National Honor Society Induction Ceremony, held on Zoom and in living rooms all over Albany.

Principal Mike Tolan and Sue Silverstein presided over the ceremony, and I wasn’t the only one who teared up. It was a privilege to honor these very brave and wonderful people.

I sat in my study and listened as one honoree after another conducted a ceremony in a different way than it had ever been conducted before. I know many of these students well, some are in my writing class, some I’ve met along the way.

I felt like a proud parent, even though none of these children are mine. They made the best of it, clinging to whatever ritual they could replicate.

Mike Tolan choked up when he talked about how proud he was of these kids, and how much he wanted them back.

Mike and Sue sat by a table in one of the school classrooms, the ceremony was punctuated by the kids chatting to each other, their siblings shouting in the background and the inevitable tech snafus.

Nobody minded, these kids know how to persevere.

I took a six-minute video to give you a flavor of it all.

Forty-nine of Bishop Maginn’s students were inducted into the National Honor Society, a powerful number for a small school. The love between the teachers and the students was palpable.

They miss their school a lot, they miss their friends and classmates.

The devastating impact of the coronavirus on their lives and futures was evident. They will miss the school but also the experience of graduating from it. They will never get that back, but they have handled themselves with grace and courage and without complaint or self-pity.

A lot of them have been through worse.

I want you back, said Tolan. You know we love you, said, Sue. I was so fortunate to be invited to this ceremony, I also miss these students very much. I also want them back.

Come and listen in:

Missing were some of the hardest-hit families – the ones who are sick and without work or income.

At least a dozen of their sons and daughters were inducted into the National Honor Society in this Zoom-era ceremony.

Perhaps they can make it to the graduation, now scheduled for late June or early July, perhaps in a cathedral.

If you can, please support our work on their behalf: via Paypal, [email protected], or by check Jon Katz, Refugee Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

I am working hard to make their graduation ceremony, wherever it is held, memorable. I’m working on a special gift back: custom pens, sashes, lapel pins, magic candy jars, and graduation key chains.

If they can’t say goodbye to their school, they will at least have some tangible things to remember it by. I loved the Honors Ceremony, Mike and Sue are the real deal, their hearts are bigger than any virus.