Thank you, flowmom, anychance, rr22, Coach, Greek, fourleafclover, and mindfull, for your comments and support.
It was a wonderful day (pictures posted on the alt). The garden looked beautiful--especially so on this day. I had helped work on it as it was being created, but there was just something about how it looked that day that was perfect.
I'm bad at estimating, but I would say that about 60 or 70 people came.
A dear friend of my mother's was there to give the invocation, which was wonderful. He quoted St. Francis of Assisi and talked about service to others (my mother's service to others included). My older "brother" came and brought his wife, who has this amazing sense of peace about her. He brought a scrapbook that had a newspaper clipping my mother had cut out in 1977. It was a story with a picture about C boxing, and she had put in on the wall in the classroom for that entire school year. After the year ended, she gave it to him, and on Friday, he showed it to the gathered crowd. He described how much she supported him both in and out of school and what a powerful message it sent to him.
My younger "brother" spoke, and he did an outstanding job, too. He talked about my mother's willingness to help him with academic and personal needs, and he remembers most that, when he was her student in fifth grade, she always made sure that he had plenty to eat.
A colleague spoke for a few minutes about my mother's service to education, and then I spoke to deliver a great many thank yous. I thought I could hold it together (I'm not a weeper), but a few tears leaked out during the invocation. Older brother opened his mouth to speak, and the tears came a little more freely. Younger brother spoke, and I did the "hitching of the breath" thing. I also made the mistake of looking at others who were gathered there, and I felt so sorry that they were sad. Their crying made me want to cry, too.
The greatest surprise of all was that a child came to the garden dedication to support me. I was never this child's teacher (nor was my mother), but this girl adopted me as her "white mother" (her way of introducing me to others) about four years ago. It meant the world that she was there in addition to all the other special people.
There was a luncheon after the dedication, and I won a prize. It was a watering can filled with garden tools (red to match my other garden things), a bag of wildflower garden seeds, and a tomato starter kit. I'm not convinced this contest wasn't rigged--I won the GARDEN prize on the GARDEN dedication day. Even if it was rigged, I'm still grateful!
Okay--I've been serious for way too long. Back to telling the completely true and ridiculous stories of my everyday life events.
