This spring, when I heard that St. Pius X Montessori Catholic School was closing at the end of the school year, I was surprised what a sense of loss I felt.
The closure is clearly far sadder for the students and families who are there, along with the teachers and parish – just as it is for those connected to Our Lady of Victory School in Arbutus, which is also closing. Still, as I think of the closing of St. Pius – which is in Rodgers Forge – I have this sense that a significant piece of my childhood is disappearing.
I haven’t walked the halls as a student for more than 30 years, but elementary school was a formative time. I can easily picture those days in that brick building with the deep blue doors.
I see my kindergarten teacher’s genuine smile and the colorful A-B-C posters on her classroom wall. I remember how the principal called me to her office and asked me – a new kindergartener – to read her a story. I sat and read the book quite happily to myself, sitting and turning the pages and not saying a single word.
I can smell the paint and papier-mâché in the art room, hear Mr. Wieprecht singing with us in music class, and feel the rough blacktop as I reached down for a stone on the 7 while playing hopscotch. I can almost smell the chalk dust from the times I got to clap the erasers and feel the weight as I carried the milk crate when it was my turn to go get the milks and orange drinks for my class.
Then there are the memories of how Sister Valeria dressed up as a clown for the Piusville Fair, how Mrs. Dougherty made sure we knew how to diagram sentences, and how I’d get a pit in my stomach every week as I walked down the steep steps to go to gym class, my least favorite.
In second grade, Sister Suzanne would sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” with us every day during Advent. There were the May processions and the school Masses and the school performances. Then there was the unforgettable day Baltimore Orioles outfielder Al Bumbry came to the school and spoke to us in the gym.
As St. Pius closes, I’ll be thinking of the students whose time there was cut short and all those grieving that loss. And I’ll be holding onto my memories – and the friendships and connections I have thanks to my time there.
In many ways, elementary school seems so long ago. But those memories and connections are strong. There’s something about the people you meet during elementary school.
Last spring, I reconnected online with a former St. Pius student who was in my older sister’s class. We’ve stayed in touch through the pandemic, and Col has started raising chickens during that time. A few weeks ago, she offered to bring us a dozen eggs. I was so excited – both for the eggs and to talk with her in person. She arrived on our front porch with pink and brown eggs laid by Lucy and Ruth and green eggs laid by Caroline. She even brought me a special, creative chicken flyswatter she made just for me.
We stood and chatted for a little while, but I felt sure we could have talked for hours. We discussed St. Pius and the pandemic and the eggs and our friendship. It was so wonderful just to be with her in that moment, on a spring day full of sunshine, as I held a carton of eggs her chickens had laid for our family.
I was struck by the beauty and excitement of this mostly new friendship, and I was grateful that though it sprang from a past connection, we were so very much in the moment. There’s something about this time of year – and the pandemic – that makes me want to value the present.
“Do not look back to the past, nor forward to the future,” said St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. “Claim only the present, for it holds God’s will.”
As summer begins, many students will say goodbye to one chapter of their lives as they begin another – and we may be starting new experiences ourselves. I hope we can each find time to claim the present, be open to God’s will for us in this moment, and savor each day we encounter, embracing new memories as they unfold.
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