With bake sales and donations, they were able to buy the seeds and the dirt and seemed truly excited about seeing their flowers grow. One part of the class had planted roses. The other planted tulips, and the other petunias. The kids had worked hard all through the school year getting the garden to grow.
Part of the class assignment was to record how much the flowers had grown, how much water was required, and at the end of the school year each group would write a report on their findings. This year the flowers were growing beautifully, and the teacher and students were all very proud of their work.
Sometimes the teacher would go in early just to enjoy the morning while looking at the flowers as she sips her coffee. But on this particular morning she noticed something. The garden didn't look quite right. Something was different but she just couldn't put her finger on it. But soon it was time to go to class and greet the students so she would have to think about it later.
Close to the end of the year it would be time for each group to start working on their garden reports. After going to their separate gardens, they would come back and start cumulating their findings and after arguments by some to make it more detailed and some not to make it so detailed it's boring, they would create a report that any botanist would be proud of.
As the students were working the teacher noticed that some of them had confused looks on their faces, so she decided to ask what was wrong. They said that for some reason they didn't have as many flowers as they had started with in the beginning. And that each week there were fewer and fewer flowers. "Maybe some of them died" the teacher said, but she knew all of the students wouldn't have had the same number of flowers dying each week.
On the last day of school, the teacher went in early as she would sometimes do. All of the student groups had turned in their reports and all of them had done a very good job. So, as a reward she made homemade cookies to share with the class. She pulled onto the parking lot and noticed someone in one of the student gardens. As she watched, she saw this person bending over and picking some of the flowers. "So that's how the flowers have been disappearing" she said to herself. "Somebody's been taking them".
Watching, she noticed that this person was a little old lady with thick glasses and grey almost white hair walking with a cane and wondered, with a smile and some admiration, how she was able to bend over and pick the flowers without falling over.
The little old lady left the garden and as there were no other cars around the teacher decided to follow her. Leaving the cookies on the passenger seat she closed the driver side door as quietly as she could, locking it and followed the little old lady, walking far enough behind so she wouldn't be heard or noticed.
They walk for a couple of blocks, slowly as the little old lady had to take a break every few steps. Once the teacher almost went to her, thinking she was going to fall, but decided not to when the little old lady regained her balance and started walking again. Soon they were at the cemetery. She opens the gate walks up the trail to a large oak tree; the little old lady sits on a bench next to a grave as the teacher hides behind another tree.
She can hear her talking but couldn't understand the words but knew whoever was in the grave was special. She watched as the little old lady bent over and placed the flowers next to the head stone, placed her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and reaching out, touched the name.
The tears were warm that were flowing down the teachers face as she thinks about what she had just witnessed. She understood now how the flowers had gone missing, and why. And she was glad in some small way, that her class was the reason that her little old lady was able to bring some flowers and lay them at the grave.
When the kids arrive at school and are settled at their desks, she tells them what had been happening to their flowers. And she asked them not to be mad but grateful that the little old lady had found their flowers beautiful enough to give them to someone she loved.
Every year a new class would plant new flowers, and the flowers always grew, and some were always taken. Until one year, when none of them were. And the teacher thought she knew why.
As she is telling the new class of the story of the little old lady, each student picks one flower and follows the teacher to the cemetery. Each student holding their own flower. Each student laying their flower on the little old lady's grave, and each student saying their own little prayer. Until only the teacher was left, who laid her own flower, raised her hand to her lips, kissed her fingers, and reaching out, touched the headstone, of the little old lady.
