Left: Hugh LeCaine, Sue (Mrs. H. C.) LeCaine, and Jeanne LeCaine in front of their home on Dufferin Street, Port Arthur, c. 1920. Perhaps the year Emily Gray came to Christmas dinner?
My mother (at right in the photo) was, among other things, a teacher. Actually, she used to say that she always knew she wanted to be two things: a teacher and a mother.
There were times I wasn't so sure how thrilled she was to be a mother. I never doubted her devotion to teaching, however.
And so, because the first week of January arrived before I was quite ready for it, I give you this. My brother discovered it in a folder of stuff he took on when we cleared out the folks' house in Oklahoma. He included it with his Christmas cards this year.
That's my mother. Subtle as a sledgehammer, but usually, infuriatingly, right.ON MAPLE SYRUP AND OTHER SMALL THINGS
A Christmas Meditation
by Jeanne Agnew (1972)
Christmas means many things, some large, some small. One thing Christmas means to me, and it may seem very small to you, is “maple syrup.” For years our children have said “Thank you” to their schoolteachers at Christmastime with a small jar of Canadian maple syrup.
But the association of maple syrup and Christmas goes back much farther, to my early childhood. Our Canadian Christmas was always an intensely family-oriented holiday season. However, my Mother always enlarged our Christmas family circle to include any solitary individual who needed a family. One such person was Emily Gray.
Emily Gray was a part of our family at one Christmas, so early in my lifetime that I have no clear memory of her. Yet, year after year, she expressed her gratitude by sending us – in the spring, when the sap ran – a gallon can of maple syrup. This was a real treat for a family in which pennies counted.
The little things in life, such as one extra place at the table, are all-important. Small acts of kindness we do, or neglect to do, have repercussions we cannot realize. At Christmastime we should especially feel the need to reach out, if only in some seemingly insignificant little way, to show genuine concern for those around us.
What if we could keep it up all year?
