Memories of Easter

As a kid, I enjoyed Easter quite a bit. Mom and I would make an Easter basket together, filling the pastel-colored plastic eggs with jelly beans and chocolate eggs wrapped in foil. We would also color eggs with various dye and decoration kits.

Dad would usually go to church. Mom and I didn’t usually attend church service with him, but I do remember as a small child carefully holding a palm leaf in the back seat of the car, cradling it as if it was a rare piece of china that might shatter at any moment, so I did attend Palm Sunday service with Dad at some point. I also remember asking one year why Dad had ashes on his forehead and being given a simplified definition of Ash Wednesday.

Dad usually avoided eating eggs, fearing their high levels of cholesterol. (I always found this ironic, since he was a lifelong smoker.) But Mom could usually coax Dad into having one of the brightly dyed boiled eggs for Easter Sunday breakfast. I would place the eggs in the little cardboard holders, labeled “Mom” and “Dad.” I usually picked out a green-colored egg for Dad, since he was Irish. We usually had something sweet with the eggs, like cinnamon rolls or blueberry muffins.

Easter memories for me are warm and bright, just like the spring season.