A Cup of Kindness

A Cup of Kindness

Christiana Adams-Caille
For Claudia Hampston Daly


Christmas Day 1992
My mother was always the first downstairs on Christmas Day.
(In her family of four girls –Their own Little Women story –The Wagoner sisters had an
oft-used expression:
“First up, best dressed”
primarily because my mother “borrowed” her sister Lorraine’s clothes).

My mother Mary always ate a piece of Christmas chocolate
And an orange first thing on Christmas day.
A present she gave herself,
memories of her Illinois farm Christmases
no doubt
when an orange was rare and chocolate even rarer
until of course she found the Chocolate Oranges,
the ones she gave each of us every Christmas thereafter.
The ones I give to everyone this year.
In remembrance.

For this December 25 morn, we are still in mourning.
I, her daughter, Christie, descend the stairs,
(my father and my Aunt Lorraine sleep)
with heavy heart.

And then I hear it.
The music – Celtic – from the CD “Grey-Eyed Morn” –
that she so loved to hear.
A gift to our father from my sister, Beth.
“No,” I say.“This cannot be.”

(Knowing that Dad had turned off the Christmas lights as he always did and
never, never would have left the Revox (again a voice?) now with CD player on.
Or did he? I will never know.)

§§§

Walking toward the family room.
Our Family Room,
once filled with music and laughter,I enter.

The music fills the room.This is not a dream.
Music for those who mourn.
Music now for Christmas morn.
“Mourn no more, my dear heart,”
I hear her voice again, her words.

(Had I told my Dad he would have found an explanation I did not want to hear; my mother would have known and understood too well that there are mysteries that some Irish scientists do not want, do not dare contemplate…

“You know, Mom, I am a mystic in some ways,” I said to her in 1989.She replied, “I know.”
She meant it.)

Easter 2008

“Grey-Eyed Morn” plays
in Saint Caradec.
I have rarely, rarely listened to this music
since Christmas 1992.
Too many memories, the memory of Christmas 1992 held in my heart, a story never told.

(For who among the angels’ hierarchies,
among my family and my friends,
will believe me?
I believe they will now.)


§§§
“Auld Lang Syne”
Fills the air.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?
CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup !
And surely I’ll be mine !

And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,sin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,frae morning sun till dine ;

But seas between us braid hae roar’dsin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !

And gives a hand o’ thine !

And we’ll tak a right guid-willie-waught,for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

***

This day I am paying attention
To the musical message,
just when I see in front of me
My mother Mary’s Friendship Cups.
All those Cups of Kindness
poured out for her friends.

I think of my friend, Claudia, who loves Burns’ night in Duluth
with her Scottish mother, Marguerite, and the whole clan and then some;
of the cups of kindness she has poured out for me.

Balm for my wounds.
I remember my mother’s family cup I gave to Claudia
in October 2002.

§§§

Mary’s Cup.
§§§

The Pietà (given by a belovèd mother-in-law) in Claudia’s kitchen.

Mother Mary comfort us, care for us, care for our sons and daughters;

“Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Pray for us now and at the hour of our Death. Amen.”
So many deaths.

(From my paper at UTS entitled “The Inner Vision” –


GAZING OUTWARD

Equally sacred, however, are the great cathedrals of the world, resplendent with art of all kinds. Recently while traveling in Italy, a young man who is perhaps not an atheist but not far from it either, exclaimed to his companion upon entering the Cathedral of Saint Mark, “Now this. This beauty. It could make you believe in God.” Similarly I will never forget my own experience in Rome. Suddenly we came upon the most beautifully exquisite artwork I had ever—then or since—seen. It was Michelangelo’s Pietà. While few would disagree that this sculpture evokes a sense of beauty, that day it provoked my first experience of the transcendent inspired by the immanent. Gazing upon the broken body of Jesus in the arms of his mother and upon their faces not only allowed me to understand deeply, suddenly, and completely the love of parent for child, but it also formed and transformed my understanding of the words I had heard countless times concerning the death on the cross and Jesus’ suffering. This incomparable moment, inspired by a depiction of mother and son, a depiction of Mary and Jesus, engendered feelings and beliefs and a sense of awe that remain as fresh and new today as they were 30 years ago. I remember so vividly also my certainty that this sculpture had been divinely inspired. Here then for me was a proof of God’s existence. How else could this marble have been transformed into pure beauty? Years later a sculptor explained that, like Michelangelo, he felt that God called the carving out of the blocks of wood in front of him, that the images he created were truly the will of God shaping the rough form into the artwork.)

Mother Mary, the broken body of her Son

Cupped, clasped in her all-too-human arms.
“Can you drink the cup?”

§§§

We have. Indeed we have.

§§§

Re-birth. Re-creation.

“Morning has Broken.”

Morning has broken,
like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

§§§

Our cups overflow
With the joy come in the
Morning, (Psalm 30)
our tears wept in the night
dried by an unseen Hand
as in heavenly Revelation where
“all their tears will be wiped away”…

§§§

—Blessèd are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted—


Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives.

May It Be So.

23 April 2008