An Easter Post

When I asked my older brother what the meaning of Easter was, he shrugged his five-year-old shoulders and replied, “It’s to hold us over ’til Christmas”.  I believed everything he said but this was long before Sunday School and long before a minister-friend told me rather emphatically that Easter means one thing:  Life Wins.

This Easter is very different.  I am missing my daughter (and son-in-law) who is 7 months pregnant, my precious granddaughter and of course, my mother who has been ill this year.  And Easter isn’t the same without my sister’s winsome porcelain Easter bunnies, cut-flower bouquets and her delicious annual holiday spread.  Still, I am doing things to make today a bit more joyous…

The charming image above makes me smile because it reminds me so much of a time long-ago when my then-husband put me to work removing a large swath of dated linoleum in an apartment we needed to find a tenant for right away.

As I removed the 40 year old floor, I noticed that it had been lined with with masses of newspapers from the 1940’s, all of which were Easter and Mother’s Day advertisements from large local department stores.  There had obviously been a collector in the house at one time.   And instead of devoting myself to the task I had been given, I found myself pouring over these lovely spring-time illustrations of whimsical Easter bonnets with flowers and veils, gloves with petite decorative wrist buttons, fanciful dresses with matching shoes, and feminine little handbags with handles.  What’s more, the papers were in pristine condition as if they had been run off the press the day before.  Naturally, I became lost in a woman’s world that had long disappeared.  I can see now, how this venture fostered a love of fashion design and illustration and although I can’t sew a stitch or draw a pair of pants, I still enjoy fashion at its most fundamental level.

Soon, my husband brought me an electric tool to finish the job he thought should have been completed weeks before.  Oh, I finished the floor alright and rented the apartment to a nice young doctor, but not before I gathered up the newspapers.  I stored them for a number of years until they became yellowed and brittle and began to shed on the attic floor.  Now so many of the images can be found online as the one above was.

So what are those things I am doing today to make my Life-Winning Easter more joyous?  Well, I am baking a ham using my grandmothers brown sugar and vinegar recipe.  I have set the table and although I haven’t been able to buy fresh flowers, I snipped some bright-yellow forsythia from the backyard which look lovely on top of my blue woven tablecloth.  I read someone on Instagram say that they are loving watching Persuasion and I realized that is the only Jane Austen film I’ve never seen.  Now that’s on my agenda for this afternoon, after a brisk walk and the dinner dishes wash-up.  I’ll pick up my knitting – a jacket for my little grandchild – at least until I doze off.  And tonight, as always, I will enjoy my annual viewing of the incomparable Sound of Music, which like Easter, reminds us that Life Wins.  We surely need to believe that right now…