There is something about spring that always makes me smile.
I love waking up early and feeling the "Spring" air. There is something about it. I am suddenly transported back to my childhood and walking to the bus stop on my way to Douglass Elementary school in Boulder, Colorado.
It was the time of year you could stop wearing the big winter coat, and the clompy boots. I didn't have to wear tights with my dress anymore and I could put shorts on underneath....( A key necessity for playing on the monkey bars!) The grass started to turn green. Flowers were starting to poke through the cold, hard ground.
The birds were all around and different chirps serenaded me down the dirt road, over the bridge by the ditch and off to the bus stop in front of the Batstone's corral. The sun felt different. The air smelled different.
Perhaps it was the fact that Easter was around the corner. There were a couple of things I remember about easter. My mom would drag out the Easter baskets out of the attic. They would have the same plastie eggs in them with the same grass. (sometimes the same black jelly beans in from the last year, if you were not careful!) A new chocolate bunny, refilled eggs, a coloring book, crayons and underwear and socks. I am not sure when the Easter Bunny became obsessed with my need for new underwear, but I suppose my mother's worries of me having on clean underwear in case I was in a car accident spurred that on...... Anywho, that was the contents of the Easter Basket. The dreadful part was still to come. My mother, would go out and get me a frilly, fluffy dress with a matching white purse and white gloves.
Now, my mother knew me. She knew I was much more inclined to play with GI Joe than Barbie. She knew I would rather shoot beer cans off the fence pole with my dad than knit. She knew I would would ride my bike 50 miles an hour down the hill over baking a cake anytime. Yet, every year, I would come home from school to this Easter Dress torture device. The fabric might as well have been steel wool. It was itchy, it was stiff and it was horribly uncomfortable. Then there was the gloves and purse set. She would expect me to head to church on Sunday with these gloves on that would prohibit me from even my ability to open the car door. The purse? This thing could not even carry a pack of gum, let alone a basketball. Why did the people at Fashion Bar hate little girls? The good part of Easter was a ham dinner, mashed potatoes and homemade rolls, and the second you could get out of that scratchy dress and get into some real clothes.
Now?
I would love to have my mother over for dinner. I could make a pretty decent ham and potatoes, but I would ask her to bring the homemade rolls or she would just be getting the heat and serve ones from King Soopers. She has been gone for almost 34 years.
I am lucky to have my dad at my house with me. He will appreciate the ham dinner, the hard boiled eggs and he won't notice the non-homemade rolls. I won't have a lot of Easter dinners left with him. I will enjoy them while I can.
But my thoughts now turn to Christ. The thoughts of that day when he died on the cross and suffered horribly. The sadness of my own weaknesses and faults but then to his kindness and love for me, and for everyone. My thoughts turn from the cross to the empty tomb. To the thoughts that he is risen again and that he has conquered death. With that news, I can have hope to see loved ones who have gone before. That is great news. That is sit in the scratchy dress news. That gives me hope and purpose to know that Christ expects me, gloves, purse and all, to make a difference. He knows we all can make a difference, one random woman at a time.
Enjoy a video entitled "He Is Risen" from the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
And Happy Easter!!
