Today we had a grand ceremony to mark the 200-day countdown to the university entrance exam. All the students, most of our teachers and almost all the parents attended it. Dad did not come because he has been very busy these days. I did not ask him to come in the first place.

 

At first I thought the activity meaningless. An onlooker, I just sat there numbly. I knew my parents did not and could not come. It was said that our class director had asked the parents to prepare a gift for their children. There would be a scene at the ceremony where the parents presented the gifts on the stage to their children. I did not care about it.

 

When some parents went on to the stage and gave a speech, I thought of my mother, who passed away last term. Though I knew there was no way she could be present today, I wanted to cry. The wintry wind was blowing wildly so I felt a little cold. The host asked all the students to stand up and the parents to come up and present the gifts to their children. Seeing it all, I burst into tears.

 

To my surprise, one of the parents came up to me and gave me a gift. It turned out that the class director had asked her to prepare a gift for me, knowing that my mother was no longer there. I felt thankful but got even sadder. They tried to console me. But they did not know what I was thinking at the moment.

 

After I calmed down, I realised that though my parents had not come, they love me forever as much as other parents do their children.

 

Thanks to our class director, the parent who gave me a present, and my classmates, what I had thought pointless turned out to be a tearful but heart-warming affair.