The Holiday I Put Away

Yesterday was Easter. Other than seeing my sister for a trip to the cemetery to plant daffodils and pansies at our family plot, I had a typical Sunday. I did not attend an Easter service and no one bought me a new pair of white gloves from J.C. Penney. There were no yellow Peeps nested in the Easter basket cobwebbed under the eaves of the attic. The ham dinner I always disliked was not served at my no longer living aunt and uncle’s farm, where I clearly remember one Easter it was 80 degrees and I got stung by a bee, and another a few years earlier when a snowstorm started during my dad and uncle’s cribbage game and we all got to sleep over.

This year, Easter Sunday was what they call seasonable. Mid-fifties, bright blue sky.

Funny thing, to this day, my favorite hymn is “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” In my head, I can still hear my mother’s voice, warbly and off-key, and my father’s booming alto on the “Alleluia” part.

What I’m saying is this holiday was not always no big deal to me, or what I made it into when I was raising my family, which was purely secular, Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the Easter story. Judas’s betrayal, the nails of the crucifixion, the mystery of the empty tomb and the aha reveal of the resurrection, all taking place as our natural world reached toward spring. I felt the drama, the significance. 

So yesterday, when my ten-year-old neighbor Royce flew downhill on his bike and yelled happy Easter to me, I responded thanks, you too, with exaggerated cheerfulness, like someone daydreaming and caught off-guard and maybe about to cry or something.