Day +93: School's Out

Today was the last school day for kids in the Orinda Union School District, and probably for a good part of the rest of the nation as well. For Scott, this was also his last official day of Orinda Intermediate School culminating in a ‘promotion’ ceremony yesterday evening and a fun class trip to a bay area theme park today to cap off the school’s BMOC festivities before heading off to be lowly freshmen in high school next fall.

Of course this was the last day of school for Keith’s 5^th grade friends all of whom are ‘graduating’ as well from elementary to intermediate school next fall. Their celebration involved a pool party at Park Pool. Now here’s the twist. With a considerable amount of parent lobbying on Josie’s part to the medical team, Keith was granted permission to attend the pool party. While he didn’t actually ‘suit-up’ or get wet he was able to run around with all of his school friends for the first time in, well, a really long time – and without his mask. It was fun for us to watch him bounding about with all of the energy he could muster, which was considerable given he has been pretty sedentary for a quite a while. His friends seemed to accept him back into the fold as though the nightmare of the last 10 months had never happened. Rumor has it that a couple of curious friends asked if they could see his large tummy scar. So Keith, who is not often one to miss an entertainment opportunity happily regaled them, resulting in the expected chorus of ooohhhs and aaaahhhhs.

For nearly 4 hours Keith raced around with his friends outlasting most of the party-goers. Finally, as much as he probably didn’t want to, he admitted he was pretty tired. He said his so-longs to his friends that still remained, negotiated a couple of deals for future play dates and hobbled off reluctantly to the car…..

exhausted but happy.