Like almost everyone else, my life was upended by COVID-19. Zinnia and I were regular visitors at Bishop Maginn High School, where we were looking for ways to help and working on our therapy work and teaching a writing workshop.

This was a critical part of my life, and it was disorienting to suddenly stop it. I am aware a lot of people faced much bigger sacrifices.

It felt like the world had turned upside down. I couldn’t go to school at all, and soon the school vanished and turned into a virtual experience.

The good thing was that we were able to help from a distance. We raised more than $20,000 in Price Chopper Gift Cards and made sure no one went hungry, we bought laptops for every student who needed one and purchased supplies and gifts for graduation.

Socially distanced good works. We did a lot of good for the refugees and their families.

Today, I’m returning to Bishop Maginn, I’ve been invited to lunch at the school. No students, just Mike Tolan, the principal, and Sue Silverstein, a teacher.

Sue and I formed our own little support school during the sheltering-in-place, we have talked almost every day.

We’re going to talk about how the school will open in the Fall, and how the Army of Good might be able to help. We’re also going to talk about how to publish the very wonderful writing to my students about the sudden and dramatic change in their lives.

I’d like to publish this work, we’re calling the book or pamphlet “Interrupted Lives.” It will be strange going into the empty school building, it was always buzzing with activity.

I loved working with my students on it, I think what they wrote was valuable an important report from a strange time from a student’s perspective.

I’m not bringing Zinnia, it just seems too warm to drive her around, she is a winter dog, she doesn’t love the heat.

I miss the school and the kids and the work. I’m also hoping to find out if I can return to the school and resume the therapy work in the Fall, and if it’s safe.