Sketches of Easter

Easter, 1969 — First Easter with Grandmom in Kentucky. All of the adults are secretly heartbroken by Mom and Dad’s divorce, but don’t want to upset us. Thinking we might not notice the private emotional whirlwind swirling around us, Grandmom takes Stacy, Heather and me out to the fancy Sublett’s boutique to outfit us for Easter Sunday service at Third Baptist Church. Matching frilly pastel dresses with lace and sashes and crinoline, child sized white woven hats with ribbons hanging down the back and an itchy uncomfortable elastic string under our chins, white lace-topped bobby socks, folded over, white patent Mary Janes, white gloves, miniature purses with a short strap, even new panties. Can you imagine how adorable we looked? 

Grandmom makes sure the Easter Bunny leaves huge plastic baskets of vivid fuschia and kelly green and teal, filled with hollow chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, peeps and little plastic toys. We hunt for eggs hidden outside on her patio and under Grandad’s plum trees. We are promised the buffet lunch at Gabe’s tower after church if we can behave. When we arrive at church, Grandmom claims her pew right next to her sister and family. There is some sort of social pecking order we do not know about. Mom’s cousin, an adult in his twenties, leans over to hiss at us, “I see the C&E Christians have arrived.”

“What’s that?” I look up under the brim of my hat at Grandmom, who shushes me primly.

He leans past her to whisper again, “Christmas and Easter Christians. We only see them at church two days a year.” Was church supposed to make you feel so bad about yourself?

Easter, 1984 — First Easter with Nick. I have graduated college, moved to New York and met Nick in a play. We have celebrated Valentine’s Day together and now I am excited about surprising him with an Easter basket. I don’t have much disposable income, but I scrape together enough money to buy a six-pack of Budweiser at Duane Reade and I find a free 18”x24” poster stuck inside the bag. I hurry back for coloring crayons and spend the next two days coloring rabbits and chicks and lambs and butterflies and flowers and sunny skies. We make plans to go out the night before Easter and wake up together on Easter Sunday. But like so many nights Nick and I spend together, we get in a huge fight and I storm back to my apartment, refusing to take his calls. I toss and turn all night and at 7:00 in the morning, I grab the Budwieser and the poster and storm over to his apartment on 4th Street to drag him out of bed and berate him thoroughly for his poor behavior. 

Nick’s hangover doesn’t help his demeanor, and in typical fashion, he yells back at me, telling me it’s my fault for ruining things. I attack him again and he defends himself again, yelling at top volume that he didn’t do anything wrong. When I scream at him that he has ruined our Easter, he screams right back at me, “I wanted us to have a good time. I wanted you to spend the night! I wanted the Easter Bunny to come!” Then he can’t help but laugh.

Easter, 1994 — Chloe, a kindergartner, is for some reason, obsessed with the Easter story. I can’t remember if Nick is taking her to church, but something inspires her to write about and draw all the details of Holy Week and the crucifixion and the resurrection. She brings her best friend, Sophie home after school and the two sit down at her little kid’s table to color. Chloe asks me to help her caption her drawings of Jesus’ death, a story that Sophie has not learned at temple. “What do I say on this picture of the crosses?”

 “Say Jesus was crucified on the cross,” I answer.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Sophie says, leaning in to watch Chloe work. She is a precocious 5-year-old, head full of springy brown hair and face full of freckles.

I help Chloe find the words to describe Jesus being taken to the tomb, then on the next picture, the stone being rolled away from the entrance, I suggest, “Okay, on this one, say that on the third day, he rose again.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Sophie says, growing excited.

“No, say that on the third day he rose from the dead…” I say.

“Yeah, yeah! Say something crazy like that!”

Easter, 1998 — I have continued the Easter traditions implemented by my Mom and Grandmom for my sisters and me into adulthood. (Maybe this is a grief issue which I haven’t completed, but at any rate, I try to keep the magic in Easter for my own kids as long as possible.) I’m driving Chloe home from school, fourth grade. “Chloe, do you still believe in the Easter Bunny?” I ask. 

“No,” she says. Then I see a shadow cross her face and I know she is imagining the Easter baskets overflowing with sweets and gifts that she’s afraid will cease if she doesn’t believe. She quickly corrects herself, saying, “I mean yes.”

Easter, 2006 — Chloe’s boyfriend is over the week before Easter. I ask Sam how his family is going to celebrate. Chloe reminds me Sam is Jewish. “Oh, gosh, that’s right,” I say. We won’t be attending church either and I have temporarily forgotten that Easter is attached to a religious holiday. “But wait, you mean you don’t even have the Easter Bunny?” (Sorry, Sam!)

Easter, 2020 — Chloe and Josh won’t leave their apartment. I have put together a special Easter basket for them as usual and am upset that they won’t come and get it. Cadbury eggs for Chloe, along with mini-Cadbury eggs and Reece’s peanut butter eggs and a t-towel with Easter colors and a set of cloth napkins to match. Jelly beans, Starburst and Swedish fish for Josh.

“We should just take the basket to them,” Nick says.

“Yes! That would be so fun. Let’s sneak over there and leave it on their doorstep,” I say. It’s 10pm, but we’re so excited that we get in the car and drive to Silverlake. We drop the basket on their front stoop, knock and run to hide, laughing. They don’t respond. We run up to the door, laughing and knock again, hide again. Neighbors start looking suspiciously out their windows when I knock on Chloe’s front window.

“It’s fine!” I try to whisper up to the nextdoor neighbor who is leaning out the second story window. “We’re the Social Distancing Easter Bunny.” Chloe and Josh finally, finally, crack their door open an inch and find the Easter Basket and call into the dark, “Thank you.” A hand reaches out to grab it and jerks it back into the apartment. I look at Nick, who shrugs. I’m so mad. Worst Easter ever.

Yesterday — Ted and I are on the phone, pondering the real meaning of Easter and wondering if it’s necessary to go to church to observe it, impossible this year anyway. And why all the solemnity during Holy Week? Ted has a solid daily spiritual practice and often makes me reach for my Advil by asking deep, possibly unanswerable theological questions. I propose that possibly the darkness leading up to Sunday was meant to conjure up the feelings of Jesus’ followers who witnessed his torture and death, so that we can participate the awe and elation of discovering he was alive. “Isn’t the real meaning of Easter that Jesus lived and since he said we can do the works that he did, we can also overcome death?”

We have studied many spiritual and religious teachers together. But our favorite by far is Emmet Fox. We have read and discussed his daily reader for fifteen years. One of my favorite readings says: 

Your attitude should be: I am going to live forever; in a thousand years from now I shall still be alive and active somewhere; in a hundred thousand years still alive and active somewhere; and so the events of today have only the importance that belongs to today. I greet the unknown with a cheer, and press forward joyously, exulting in the great adventure. Armed with this philosophy, and really understanding its power, you have nothing to fear in life or death—because God is All, and God is Good.

Easter, 2021 — Chloe comes over today to find the path of jelly beans leading to her Easter basket filled with Cadbury eggs, mini Cadbury eggs, Reece’s eggs, a cat toy, citronella candles, Starburst jelly beans for Josh. “The Easter Bunny came!” she exclaims on cue, ironically. She’s in charge of the traditional egg and sausage casserole and the Bloody Marys. I fry up the hash browns and we eat all the candy we want. We don’t go to church, but I remember the promise of Easter, eternal life. I believe that I will be alive somewhere forever and I believe that everyone I love will be too. Nick, Chloe, Omar. And my Grandmom is around as well, in the lace and ribbons of an Easter bonnet and in the sweet, pastel joy of the Easter Bunny. I keep Grandmom alive. And Chloe and Omar will take over when they’re the ones setting out that trail of jelly beans leading to a big basket of goodies.