Today is your birthday. Usually by now I have scoured the card aisles of Target and probably Hallmark looking for the perfect card. Sometimes I would go serious, sometimes funny and I know your favorites were always the ones that I would pick at addressed to Mommy. I know that, because I found a stack of them in your office a few weeks ago.
I have had a hard time the past few weeks remembering that I didn't have to do my annual card shopping trip. I have been in Target standing there looking at cards and then very silently catch myself wiping away a tear and walking away.
I have even had to stop myself from buying you a new mug. I found a perfect one about a month ago at the beach and I just stood there and stared at it for the longest time. To this day, I am not sure why I didn't go ahead and buy it, but I guess I was also trying to figure out what we are going to do with the mass collection that is still in the kitchen cabinet in the house.
So I have resorted to trying my best to just stay busy these last few days. I have spent time with D, had a bunch of girls from the office over for dinner, watched movies, took a tour of Larry's Beans (an awesome coffee facility in Raleigh-- I am sorry that you never got to enjoy Larry's coffee. I even got to meet him and I think he is going to help foster my new habit and turn me into a coffee drinker - for all my friends out there- you have got to try it), got a new pair of glasses and today I will be watching a lot of NCAA baseball. GO HEELS!!! (and NC State)
It has also been a hard week to watch all of my mommy and teacher friends talk and post things on Facebook about the end of the school year. I remember how bittersweet the end of the school year was for you each year. You loved to teach and I know that there were years that it was really easy for you to say goodbye to some students but hard for you to say bye to others. You would pack up your room and bring home box after box each year. No wonder it took J, M and I so long to clean out the garage. You kept everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. But you were the best teacher in the whole wide world. And I actually can say that, since I even had you one day when I was in either 2nd or 3rd grade as a substitute. I remember how hard it was for me to call you Mrs. Howes and not Mom.
I also remember that two years ago, we not only celebrated your birthday, we celebrated your retirement from a job that you loved. I know that it was tough for you to hang up your eraser and put away your chalk, where you weren't actually teaching anymore these last few years, but you get the idea. Maybe I should say that you had to entire your ruler. Even though you never actually got to use it on a student, but I am sure that there were plenty that you wish you could have.
When you moved from the classroom to the administration arena, I know that your favorite part was helping to get to develop new teachers. And one of them is now a part of our family. So even though you are not Mrs. Howes in the classroom anymore, there is a new Mrs. Howes taking over and ruling over a classroom full of young minds. Thanks M for following in her footsteps.
So in honor of your day, I will sit here and enjoy a cup of coffee (it is a habit that I am really starting to develop - you knew that it would happen at some time in my life), eat a Godiva bar, drink a Blue Moon and cheer on the TARHEELS!!! All of your favorite things.
I love you and miss you.
G's
