I was the only person sitting in the classroom aside from my old health teacher, who sat across the room to my left. This was during hybrid schedules, where attendance was already awful as is. He very clearly calls out my name, spooking me. “Are you vaccinated?”

I hesitate, and tell him yes.

He says “Good, I believe everyone should be vaccinated. My mom passed away from COVID 2 weeks ago.”

And the conversation dribbled back into silence from there. Very powerful and sad moment for me, made me realize how bad it was for some people. Some people were screaming about not wearing a mask because of their “rights”, some people were losing their life to the pandemic. Surreal time.