The Last Day of School

June 14th, 2001. I was nine years old, sitting in Mrs. Patterson's fourth-grade classroom. Summer vacation stretched ahead like an endless ocean.\n\nMrs. Patterson read us one last story — about a boy who sailed a paper boat down a river, learning the journey mattered more than the destination.\n\nThe bell rang. Chaos. Backpacks zipped, desks scraped. I hugged Mrs. Patterson goodbye.\n\n"Have a wonderful summer, sweetheart. Keep reading."\n\nI ran into the June sunshine where my mom waited in her old blue station wagon.\n\nI didn't know the world would change forever. That I'd never sit in that classroom again. That some classmates would move away, and I'd never see them again.\n\nBut that day, standing in the sunshine with my backpack full of books I'd never open again, I was just a nine-year-old boy who couldn't wait for summer.