To My Dearest Students, 

You may not know this, or understand how it can be, but I love you. I hardly know some of you, but I love you anyway. I think about you, worry about you, wonder how I can give you my best, and most of all, I pray for you. 

This is such a strange and terrible time; we need each other more than ever, yet we are prevented from even seeing each other. When I teach in a zoom meeting, you have no idea how I long to see your faces, how I yearn to hear your voices, how my heart seeks to reach through the screen to get to know each of you…because I love you. 

My greatest joy in teaching was you: laughing with you, listening to your ideas, sometimes having to be harsh with you when you were heading down the wrong road. Now, without you, my joy is limited to imparting my enthusiasm for my subject to you all, which is all I am actually allowed to give you right now. It seems a cold comfort; just a pleasant shadow of what could have been. 

You are the reason for my many years in this profession. You are the reason I came back to work this year. Not the salary, not future summer vacations, not even my love for my subject. You. My beloved. 

With all the affections of my heart, 

An Anonymous Teacher