Easter Today

This is probably the one holiday I only associate only with my grandparents. Christmas is my mother's holiday. Thanksgiving belongs to my whole family. But Easter is reserved for my mother's parents. I'm sorry, but I have no religious context for the resurrection.

My grandparents have this gorgeous backyard with wood walkways and tiered decks. There are these huge pine trees that my grandma said came in small tubes as advertisements from gardening companies. Now, 50 years later, it would take a crew of men to bring down one of these behemoths. There are bushes and flowers, stone gardens and grass. Hundreds of wonderful places to hide the plastic eggs that split in half.



Grandpa and Grandma would hide eggs out back while we were waiting inside. My cousins, my brother, and I would wait, and, once they were done hiding the eggs, we would be unleashed into the backyard. The eggs had quarters, dimes, and dollar bills inside, but, to a young person, money really isn't that useful. We would all tear into the eggs for the almighty PRIZE paper. With this ticket, we could pick out an item from the prize box. And this prize box was not stuffed with useless prizes Smarties or Sweet Tarts—this prize box was full of action figures and hand-held games.

There were about ten PRIZE tickets for the four of us. Even if the grandchildren didn't get equal numbers of PRIZE coupons, Grandpa would discreetly pass by dropping more into the “losing” person's pile. Equality was always key to avoiding tears.

My cousins stopped coming to the eggs hunts when they were in high school, but my brother and I continued to have egg hunts all the way until Grandpa died, which was only a few years ago. My mom and Grandma have given an egg hunt now and then, but not with the same consistency as when Grandpa was at the helm. I don't really blame them. I'm older now, and the memory of past traditions is sometimes more painful than the enjoyment of the present moment.

Easter today was simple. Just a small family get together. No cousins or brothers. Grandma was too tired to make a ham or turkey, and she got somewhat upset when my mom or I offered to help cook the “Easter foods.” So, we had Easter sukiyaki.

This Easter Sunday was a lot like countless other Sunday's at my grandma's house. We sat at the table having a conversation perfectly between banal and intimate. We ate our food slowly. Time seems to expand when visiting old people; everything takes just a bit longer than in the non-old people world. Walking, talking, eating, channel surfing--everything seems to slow down.

Suddenly I realized that besides the Easter cupcake, there was nothing eventful, nothing "Easter" about today. I asked my Mom, "So what's so 'Easter' about today? We're just sitting here like we always do." She replied, somewhat uncharacteristically, with the profound answer, "It's Easter today because it's Easter today." Well said.

This Easter managed to resurrect some old, fond memories, and that's pretty "Easter" about today even if there wasn't an egg hunt.