A Note from the Gatekeeper

For the last few years, I've been honored to tend to a small square of space located behind the left wall of the main lobby of our local public high school. In this spot, it is my joy to meet, greet and get to know the students (and sometimes their parents) who make an obligatory pit stop at "my" window. Every year around this time, as graduation approaches, I get the same tightening of the throat as I recognize the closing of time I have with the students who have become familiar fixtures of my days. 

I am the gatekeeper of Conestoga Valley High School and this is a letter for those who frequent by the little ledge that has connected us:

Dear graduating Seniors of Conestoga Valley High School,

    There are plenty of you I do not know well, but there are many of you whose impending departure from our hallowed halls has me feeling a mixed bag of sadness for your absence, disdain for change and above all, gratitude for what you all have taught me in my role as gatekeeper (attendance assistant) at our school.

    What might be hard for people who don't move and breath inside a high school such as ours, is the way the world outside is pared down and replicated into the halls and classrooms, cafeterias and stadium bleachers, creating a microcosm of a diversity and differences accurately reflecting the realities outside our walls. Unlike any other time in your life, from 7:40AM until the bell rings at 2:36PM, you share an address with a community of people who converge together, not so much by choice, but by the proximity of zip code and opportunity to be educated without a tuition. We all know full well that we do not live in a Utopian paradise, not in the least. Even so, what I have experienced from my vantage point as one who checks in and out our bustling population is a true thing you would do well to take with you as you go. 

    What I have learned by the daily, minute-by-minute, snippets of simple conversations that have built a relationship between myself and many of you, is this:

    When we do not allow ourselves OR the person in front of us to be defined, type-cast, labeled or assigned to a rigid category of people, we create space to be HUMAN. This may seem basic, but in a world that seems hell-bent on replacing our humanity with algorithms and artificial intelligence that actively seeks to divide and coldly conquer, consistently creating space for humanity may be one of the most courageous things you do -not only for yourself, or your generation, but for future generations. I know this reads grandiose, but I believe it will prove to ring true. 

    Every single day, I get to serve students who are the children of Democrats, Republicans and Independents and who have or are figuring out where they stand on the political scale...but in not one of all my many chats with you, has this been a part of our conversations or the scale upon which we've judged each other by. Not because it is unimportant, but because the basics of "how are you holding up?", "what's making you smile so big?" or "you seem upset" are the kind of simple but key questions that allow us to open up to each other and our shared human experiences. When I felt seen by and cared for by you first (Which I do! By many of you! Lucky me!), what ticket you vote for, what flag you fly, what cause you crusade becomes secondary to knowing you as a person. Creating and protecting space for each other to tap into what we share as humans has been a benefit of the job I could have never projected and am now passionately grateful for. 

    My beautiful, wise, funny, strong, silent, loud, insecure, confident, crazy, cool, artsy, sporty, eclectic, smart, failing, winning, losing and most of all, loving humans of Conestoga Valley High School ...you must know you are loved and seen. You are an example to me and you are already casting a light of a certain quality that only you can offer to make an illuminating difference in this dark world. 

    Please always remember, even-and especially when-your light is running low, that the simple act of a conversation between you and the person in front of you, void of assumptions and labels, will always be your best chance to actually make this broken world we share, a better, brighter space. 

I believe in you. 

With gratitude and great expectations,
Mrs. Miller