Alright, it's storytime: Two years ago, right after Christmas break, our high school math class returned to the classroom to find out that we were going to have a substitute for the next few weeks. We found out the reason why a couple days later... our math teacher's husband had suddenly passed away during the holidays.
Now, we didn't particularly like our usual math teacher(let's call her Mrs. B), as she wasn't the greatest at teaching. We were mostly frustrated as we were in an advanced class, and she couldn't provide us with any more guidance than what the textbook offered. Mrs. B was the stereotypical middle-aged, strict, grumpy instructor that nobody really liked(I don't mean to offend), and because of the way she taught(or lack thereof), we usually went to other teachers when we needed math-specific help. Long story short, she wasn't great.
Anyway, all those feelings and opinions kind of just dissipated when we heard the news. We all felt bad that someone had to go through that situation, and despite our opinions about her, we concluded that it didn't make Mrs. B any less of a person overall. So we decided to gift her a welcome back surprise sort of thing for when she returned. I honestly don't remember how it all started, but eventually we somehow had groups of 4-5 working on sympathy cards, gift baskets, etc. during class. Thankfully the trigonometry unit we were working on was pretty easy; we had a bunch of free time during class during those few weeks. Even the substitute was really supportive. He even helped merge our lessons+classwork together into manageable portions so that we could get ahead of schedule and not drop behind in the curriculum.
So after those 2 or 3 weeks, the day finally arrived. We weren't able to set the surprise up beforehand since the school's protocol was "no students in the classrooms without staff supervision," so a bunch of us had to carry around parts of the surprise throughout our morning classes. When math class finally rolled around, we all kinda just grouped up in the front of the class until Mrs. B noticed. Then we placed the cards and stuff on the front row of desks and announced "Welcome back, Mrs. B!!". Of course, she was a little shocked, but the moment she picked up one of the cards and read it... oh man. She just burst into tears right then and there. She was just so touched and grateful. So yeah, that's how it happened.
I visited her classroom a few weeks before lockdown, and I swear, those cards were still pinned on her wall. I thought that was really sweet :)