When I was in elementary school, everyone gave the teacher a present at the end of the year, I guess to thank her for all her hard work. Nothing was ever said about this but all the parents seemed to know. My mother had six kids and finding gifts for the teacher for each of her kids must have been worrisome. Luckily, the practice didn't continue after the fifth grade, and luckily, my mother had a good imagination and the assurance to act on what she felt was acceptable.
Our yard was crowded with flowering shrubs in the spring. It was a beautiful time of year and I loved to watch the blossoming of one shrub after another. If I had been gifted with a talent for painting, I would have painted these flowers. However, even though I enjoyed their color and fragrance, I wasn't prepared to see them as appropriate gifts for the teacher. My mother disagreed. Every year on the last day of school my mother sent me outside to cut a large bouquet of lilacs to bring to school. Now, I loved lilacs, still do, but I was embarrassed to bring this bouquet to school as my gift for my teacher. None of the other kids brought flowers. They all brought gifts that their mothers had bought at the local store. Little trinkets that seemed so much more appropriate for the teacher than what I had brought lined her desk for all to see. I never noticed that my gift always held center stage in a vase placed front and center on her desk.
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