Saying Good-bye

Saying goodbye is part of being a teacher. Students come and students go. Sometimes, I have been known to tell my kindergartners who are reluctant to leave the security of the known, that “I have taught you everything I know. And now you have to go to first grade to learn some more.” I am, after all, their school mama.

In my school, I have been blessed through the years to have had multiple children from the same families. It is a good thing to have already established a rapport with the parents, so then you only have to get to know the child. And the parents like knowing what they are getting, so to speak. Usually, these parents have actually requested me for the younger child.

So it is that I have taught a girl who is now ready to enter high school, her sister who is entering third grade and I was fully expecting to have the youngest sister this coming year. Sadly for me, they are moving to Oregon to begin a whole new adventure. Actually, it will begin with their cross-country drive to their new home. I am very excited for them ---and quite disappointed for me because this is one of my very favorite families and I have watched as the two younger ones grew from newborns. The parents are both natives of Japan and have trained their daughters to be exemplary students and a joy to be around. These gifted parents have highly gifted daughters.

Tuesday, they came to our house (at my invitation) for ice cream and a good-bye visit. They brought me a lovely plant, called a Kanga, Pink Kangaroo Paw. It is a new, patented plant and a new-to-me plant.

While saying good-bye may be part of being a teacher, it is never easy.  Sometimes, it is really hard.