Easter Sunny

It was a picture perfect Easter morning. Sunshine, warm temperatures.  At home, L made a special family breakfast with Joey; they had it ready for and Joe and me when we returned from mass.  The Easter homily was all about hope and I felt so much better about life on the way home from church.  After breakfast we made the cemetery run – piercing the earth of our fathers’ graves with the wire frames of flowered-covered crosses.  Saying a prayer to each, “Happy Easter, Dad,” times two. And I placed a single lily on the grave of my grandparents. 

Then we visited Joe’s mom and we were please to find standing room only in her large living room as five of his seven siblings, with spouses and offspring, were already there for a late Easter morning visit.  But there were no longer Easter egg hunts at that house, like in the days when we all had small children; most are all grown up now, high school, college, and beyond.  How they would excitedly scurry around the small back yard of the house that my husband grew up in, placing their plastic candy-filled eggs in crunchy paper bags.  Joey always wanted to eat his as soon as he found one, and then search for the next brightly-hued egg.  But his sister guided him along – collect first, eat later.  She always took care of him and tried to show him how to do things best.

Later, my sister and family came for dinner and it was a relaxed and casual time.  I am thankful, so thankful for all sides of my family.

A few Easter snapshots, featuring blue skies and sunshine:

1. Sometime in the late-1950s.  My mom and grandma Nona cooked while my dad and Uncle Anthony took us to the Bronx Zoo, all dressed up in our brand new Easter bonnets and coats.  I remember little vinyl pocketbooks with plastic gold-painted buckles, black patent baby doll shoes, new, ruffled socks.  One year a giraffe dipped his long neck down and licked my cousin JJ’s hand at the old zoo.  It was the talk of the dinner table that day, how the giraffe slobbered all over my cousin's hand.
2. 1968. South Jersey, Billy drove his powder blue Mustang over to visit me.  I was wearing a navy blue dirndl skirt and white blouse with ruffles, probably lots of dark eye make-up and white lipstick.  “It’s a Beautiful Morning” by The Rascals was playing on his car radio, windows open, sun shining.  It really was a beautiful morning.  I was fifteen.
3. 1986. Ohio.  I dressed Joey and L up in Easter finery, just as my mother had done for my sister and me a generation before.  We went to church and out to brunch and L, about nine months old, ate her first meal all by herself, food cut up in little, tiny pieces. She sat in that restaurant high chair like such a big girl in her fluffy pink dress.  So independent. 
4. 1990.  Still in Ohio. Another sunny Easter afternoon, blow-up pastel bunnies sat on the back yard swing set.  Our new puppy chased the laughing, running, squealing neighborhood children, along with Joey and L.  Linda, Alan and Matthew stayed with us overnight on their way to Michigan to spend Passover with Alan’s family.  The three kids, L, Joey and Matthew had their own egg hunt, organized by Aunt Linda, L's fairy godmother.
5. 2005.  Split vigil between Joe and me, in the bone marrow transplant unit, after L's first go-round with leukemia.  I did the morning, Joe the afternoon stint, handing off Joey in-between.  This was the first time, and the last time, that we could not/did not have Easter dinner together as a family. 

Hope everyone had a sunny Easter Sunday, too.