Denver City Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval’s daughter, Isabella, is scheduled to graduate from North High School on May 28, but who knows what the world is going to look like by then?

Sandoval recently addressed the situation in a poignant Facebook post.

“If there’s a high school senior in your life, give them a hug. To them, the cancellation of school is not a vacation. It’s wasted time they don’t get to spend with their friends the last few months before they graduate.

“They’re anxious, realizing they may never be able to walk the halls for the last time … . They’re sad hearing their senior prom they’ve been waiting on all year has a chance of being canceled. They’re nervous that they may not be able to walk the stage and get the diploma they have been working hard on for 12 years.

“Show them support and love them during these hard times. #classof2020#,” Sandoval wrote.

At last glance, she had received 150 “likes.”

The ongoing pandemic has upended so many life events, weddings, funerals, births, vacations and work. But not everyone is sympathetic to graduating seniors.

“My dad and a lot of his classmates didn’t even get to complete high school because of World War II,” one person wrote on Facebook.

Sandoval knows the decision to close schools and restaurants and so many other businesses, and to ban large gatherings, such as concerts and graduations, is being done to stop the spread of COVID-19.

But she said her daughter has every right to be upset, to break down and cry, as Bella did recently.

“She knows she probably is not going to see a lot of these people again,” Sandoval said. “My son, however, is a freshman and he’ll get to be with his classmates in the fall.”

We hope.

Gov. Jared Polis announced on March 22 a public health order implementing a 50% reduction in non-essential business in-person work in an attempt to increase social distancing. It expires on April 10, but with the caveat that it can be extended, changed, ended or replaced.

“We are all scared that this is the calm before the storm,” Dr. Don Stader, an emergency medicine doctor at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, told Colorado Public Radio.

The reality is we have no idea how long this is going to go on, and what life events will be upended.

A long-planned family reunion of the Bartels cousins in August was canceled March 24. Who knows if my niece’s high school graduation party in Maryland in June will go on. I had already bought plane tickets to both events.

Sen. Brittany Pettersen and her husband, Ian Silverii, consider themselves lucky. Their son, Davis James, was born Jan. 19 before coronavirus concerns touched down in Colorado. Out-of-state family members traveled to Lakewood to visit the family. Friends came to the hospital.

“We feel really bad because we have close friends who are expecting and they don’t know what to expect,” Pettersen said.

When Davis was born, she envisioned bringing the baby with her to the state Capitol when she returned to work, and showing him off at various political events.

But the legislature on March 14 shut itself down until (at least) March 30 because of the pandemic, the Colorado Democratic Party’s Obama dinner has been canceled, and the couple opted against taking the baby to precinct caucuses.

Silverii, executive director of the liberal group Progress Now, said he has spent the past weeks reading everything he can and watching the news, and he is frightened for what lies ahead.

Many of us are.

One of the most touching coronavirus stories I read in recent weeks was written by David Gelles, CNN’s executive producer of political and special events programming. His father suffers from brain cancer and for months Gelles had been thinking about how to write his obituary. But it was his mother who died, of a ruptured brain aneurysm a few hours after learning her husband had gotten worse.

“My mother was just 75, younger than some presidential candidates, and still had dozens of friends who wanted to attend her funeral. But in the hours after she died, hours after I watched her take her last breath, I was furiously texting her friends and saying, please don’t come to her funeral,” Gelles wrote.

“I promised everyone we would hold a fitting memorial service when we made it out of COVID-19’s wake. But it wasn’t any comfort to me or them. Social distancing, while an important step to slowing the spread of the virus, has deepened the pain of what my family and I have lost.”

I understand.

My mother’s sister, Kathryn Claman, died late last month at her home in eastern El Paso County. She was 88 and had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Aunt Kathryn had served as the national secretary and president of the Retired Enlisted Association, and the group wants to honor her.

Her family decided to hold the funeral in April because of March’s famous snowstorms.

“Now we’re hoping to be able to do it on Memorial Day weekend, but I don’t know,” her daughter, Teresa, said.

She works weekdays at the Denver Mint, where they’ve just been told that they’ll be working shifts, one week on and one week off. The staff has positioned chairs six feet apart so they can practice social distancing while they make money.

In the meantime, let me quote from Facebook again. Someone posted this on Councilwoman Sandoval’s page and it hits home for so many people:

“Dear High School Seniors of 2020,

You were born when the world was grieving over 9/11.

And you are graduating as the world grieves a pandemic.

Although your two biggest launches into freedom (birth and graduation) have taken place in the midst of tragedies, just know that the world is an amazing, loving beautiful place and it is waiting for you with open arms.

We grieve with you that your senior year is ending this way. But we can’t wait to see how you overcome and soar.

You were made for this,

Love, all the senior parents”