This Little Mug of Mine

Day 30 for Rise and Write. I've been a sleepy crank the last few mornings, so this is  Crash at Day's End and Write. Today I'll be writing about a cup or a mug. 

I wondered what all the giggles on that Friday had been about in my class of four year olds. Helping my kids shape letters, or manage a tiny button in the doll corner, or leading a group game, all day little tiny hands cupped their mouths giggling.  It was my last day teaching as a single woman.  When I came back ten days later, I wouldn't be Miss any more. It was clear there was some surprise coming.  Before the first of the kids left, my co- teacher rounded up the group, plus the younger kids, all to my classroom.  There, I was presnted a beautiful handmade card with lots of hand prints, and  valiant attempts at writing their names.  Most of my kids had mastered this, only a year out form kindergarten and were so proud.  "That's not all miss, but you'll have to wait."

Now the Sunday after the wedding, opening gifts with my new husband, I found out what the other surprise was.  It was a pretty, simple, clay coffee mug, with slightly raised blue flowers on the side, with a bouquet of short flowers in the mug itself. It came with a card, which my husband opened, wondering if it was a joke from his friends.  Of course he didn't yet speak four, not being a parent yet himself, so he couldn't decipher the messages and names my kids had written in the card. When the flowers had wilted, I cleaned the mug out and it became my daily coffee mug at school.  The kids loved seeing me drink from it."We gave that to you," someone said at lest once a week.

That mug came with me when I switched schools.  It became my link to the classroom when I moved from teaching to doing  family education and counseling in an office setting.  It moved with me to my office days when I went on to work in program management.  It survived a move to a new building when most of the other sentimental trinkets did not. In the fall of 2011, I sipped out of it the afternoon before later going to a high school football game.  My son was long out of high school, but it was the 10th anniversary of the year the high school had won the Class 5 A Minnesota State Football tournament.  My nephew had been on the team, along with  half a dozen boys that had been in my preschool class twenty four years earlier. Many of them young fathers now, I could still picture their little faces, including one little boy, who was not there. He had tragically passed away a few years out of high school.

I don't remember when exactly, but one day the mug went missing and never turned up again.  Often people had favorite mugs that would be left by mistake in the kitchen, and occasionally an all points bulletin was put out.  I did as well, but to no avail.  I was hoping someone was playing a joke and I would receive a ransom note or something, but no dice. It was gone. I'm sure it fell on the floor, broke, and was swept away.  There was nothing special about it that would make anyone think anything of it. For me, that mug held a lot more than coffee. It held the future of twenty four year olds. I still miss it.