An Open Letter to the Great Test Generation, Including the Class of 2020

Your have journeyed far to arrive at this point in your life. Further than you realize, perhaps. The elements that constitute your physical being traveled hundreds of lightyears across the millennia to arrive in their current form as your body. Folk singer Joni Mitchell put it best: “we are stardust.”

There are other parts of you beyond the merely physical. Those, too, have a long story. Indeed, your story isn’t just your story. Your life is the latest chapter in the story of your family. You are the descendant of survivors. Those who came before you, your ancestors, lived, loved, worked, and risked their lives, some of them more than others, so that you could be here today. Some crossed borders, even oceans, to give you a better life. All made sacrifices. All made mistakes, some moreso than others. But, in one way or another, all lived so that you could live. In innumerable ways, who they were has given shape to who you are. Never forget that.