Peeps, chocolate eggs, daffodils, roast lamb and Alleluias all around. A lovely Easter with warm weather, flowers and trees blooming, both children home for mass in the morning and an afternoon meal.
The crucifixion story sung by the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar was on as we cooked Paschal lamb with garlic and rosemary. This is our Broadway musical loving daughter's tradition. We all know the words by heart. It was a day full of old family stories and traditions.
The resurrection story is the ultimate ghost story: Mary Magdalene finds Jesus had rolled back the stone from the tomb where he had lain for three days after death and then encountered him on the road. During dinner we talked about encounters with spirits of those who have passed. Dean has a toffee tin he found after his mother's death which appears to bear her image. It may not be her, but it does resemble her late in life. Quite mysterious.
My own father seemed to mark the day of his death in a small date book I found in his room after he was gone. Dean and I recalled the time we went to a spiritualist church in a summer community in Skowhegan, Maine. This was simply out of curiosity with his friend Julie from college who does anthropological research. But the medium, a man from up north in Rangeley, managed to describe a woman standing over Dean who said, "You work too hard," which is what his mother used to say to him. For me he described someone holding rose clippers and a basket of raspberries. That would be my grandmother in her garden in Newport, RI.
So maybe its a stretch to believe in such things, but I like the notion that those we love and have lost to age and time are still present for us. For me this can be as simple as using my grandmother's recipe for rolls or singing the hymn my mother liked so much, or for Dean to see the tin with his mother on it or her paperweight collection.
The cherry blossoms have almost past; the ultimate symbol of transience and fragility, but the quince blossoms are just ready to burst. Their turn in the season of our yard will forever remind me of my mother and her love for the garden. Happy Easter!
The crucifixion story sung by the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar was on as we cooked Paschal lamb with garlic and rosemary. This is our Broadway musical loving daughter's tradition. We all know the words by heart. It was a day full of old family stories and traditions.
The resurrection story is the ultimate ghost story: Mary Magdalene finds Jesus had rolled back the stone from the tomb where he had lain for three days after death and then encountered him on the road. During dinner we talked about encounters with spirits of those who have passed. Dean has a toffee tin he found after his mother's death which appears to bear her image. It may not be her, but it does resemble her late in life. Quite mysterious.
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| Sharps Toffee tin |
So maybe its a stretch to believe in such things, but I like the notion that those we love and have lost to age and time are still present for us. For me this can be as simple as using my grandmother's recipe for rolls or singing the hymn my mother liked so much, or for Dean to see the tin with his mother on it or her paperweight collection.
The cherry blossoms have almost past; the ultimate symbol of transience and fragility, but the quince blossoms are just ready to burst. Their turn in the season of our yard will forever remind me of my mother and her love for the garden. Happy Easter!
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| Rose and quince blossoms |
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