In gratitude

When I  recall memories of my middle school years, thoughts of my English teacher sister Jacob always clouds my eyes. My love  for the language comes from her passion for English . When she taught poetry, the characters would come alive.  She seemed to be in love with William wordsworth. And I still am. Many years later, in my first holiday to Europe, the first question I asked our tour guide was " Where can I see daffodils?" .

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Sister Jacob, with her huge body( see pic) would move around the class gracefully and influence our imagination so powerfully with her flow of language. She was my English teacher from grade 6 to grade 10. When a teacher stays longer with students, she understands them better. And she simply had a different expectation from each student, based on their skills and abilities. Even after I left school, I used to write to her and I still preserve her letters( in pic).
When people appreciate my neat handwriting, my thoughts float back to the blackboard. Many days  after she left the classroom, I would run to the blackboard to write on her letters, and that has stayed in my muscle memory long after she left her earthly abode. 
She always quoted Michelangelo's words " Trifles make perfection, and perfection is not  trifle" . And I have been striving to live upto her expectations of me, to the best of my abilities.