Imagine that your grandmother had waved you off to school every morning? Wouldn’t that be an amazing way to start your day? Well for the last 12 years, hundreds of students got waved at by Tinney Davidson, a kind elderly woman living in Comox, British Columbia, Canada. But as a great-grandmother, Tinney knows that kids eventually grow up and leave. Now it was her turn to move away. But she had made such an impression on the students at Highland Secondary School, that they decided to give her a very special goodbye wave.There is a special kind of relationship that Tinney and the students at Highland Secondary School have shared over the last 12 years. She sat at her window every morning in her white rancher on Guthrie Road and waved at the teens heading as they went to class.
Students eventually graduate and head off to bigger and better things. Then a new wave of students will arrive, but this time, Tinney won’t be at the window to wave at them when they go to school. You see, Tinney is ready to move on too.
Hundreds of students will undoubtedly miss the sweet old lady who waved at them. But it wasn’t over just yet. The students wanted to thank Tinney for always being there every morning and they found a touching way to do it.
They didn’t come empty handed. They stood on her front lawn holding signs with messages conveying gratitude. They even brought her bouquets of flowers. When Tinney opened the door and saw the students there, she clapped her hands.
It didn’t take long for the students to start waving back at them. “I just liked the look of the children and they all looked in and I thought, ‘If they’re looking in, I’ll wave to them,’ and that’s how it started,” she explained during a 2014 interview.
Eventually, the students started paying her special visits at home. In 2016, they surprised her by decorating her home with red and pink paper hearts. They even walked up to her doorway and gave her hugs and Valentine’s cards.
“Oh, lovely, thank you,” Tinney said, holding a tissue. Then the teenagers blew her a group kiss. One student even said “Love you,” before leaving. Tinney waved and said goodbye one last time while sitting on her front porch. She added that she was shocked that so many kids wanted to bid her farewell.
