How often have you heard the phrase “in these uncertain times”? Since the beginning of widespread COVID-19 business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, the phrase is used daily by everyone from policy makers to television ad copywriters.

Phrases like these tend to lose their meaning as they hit meme-level usage. They become empty clichés, used so often they have all the impact of a white noise machine. And yet, what are our current times if not entirely uncertain?

When I began planning the subject for this column, for example, I was pretty certain I’d be writing about the phenomenon of students graduating from their schools with none of the usual rites of passage associated with it. Millions of kids are not going to be graduating from kindergartens, middle schools high schools or colleges. The ends of their academic years, in many cases, melting away into a strange month or so of filing homework assignments online with no contact with classmates or teachers.

That such a thing would be brought on by viral and deadly strand of RNA is certainly few of us thought possible.

And now, as I actually write this piece, our city and cities across the country are experiencing the some of the most ferocious protests in 50 years. Philadelphia is presently preparing for a third night of destruction and looters have spread out across the city into neighborhoods far away from Center City, including Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill.

That protests erupted following the murder of George Floyd by a group of police officers in Minnesota really should come as no surprise to anyone. It was one more atrocity in a long line for which justice seems perpetually absent. But the looting that followed across the city, from Kensington to 52^nd Street and beyond should be shocking, particularly as it stretches in to a third day.

But I want to come back to the kids who are graduating. Graduation is a time in which we all celebrate potential. The hard work has been put in. The challenges overcome. And now the student is moving up to the next level of schooling or has completed school altogether. Next stop: a bright and shining future.

Today, it’s very hard to look any graduate in the eye and promise them better is yet to come. It’s not a promise that I think anyone can make with certainty. So much has been cast in doubt over the last two months. I tend to be optimist, but there aren’t many bright sides to look on at the moment.

In the cycle of history things tend to improve, but there are always periods of darkness. We can only hope that the light at the end of this particular period is close at hand, not only for ourselves, but for all of our kids and other young people who are graduating soon and looking to move on to bigger and better things.

Pete Mazzaccaro