Easter Morning

My Mom's favorite holiday was always

Easter. I can remember when I was really little

asking her, "Mommy, what's your favorite

holiday?"

I was a kid, so you can guess Christmas was my favorite, I was

sure it was hers.

It wasn't, she told me that Easter had always been

her favorite.  She loved the week between Palm Sunday and

Easter Sunday, she referred to it as Holy Week.

She loved the rebirth of her

faith that happened every year.

Growing up, Easter was done big in our house.

One year she made hot cross buns, another year

she used bread dough to make little bunny rabbits.

She used pressed sugar to

make my brother and me panoramic eggs.

Every year she sewed me an Easter dress.

She made sure that we decorated eggs, enjoyed

the Easter bunny, but still learned what Easter

was all about.

Every year, she and Dad would dress us up,

and take us to a Sunrise Service. One year, we

didn't have a sunrise service to go to, so my parents

dressed us up and took us to the back yard, so that we could learn

what it must have been like that first Easter morning.

Easter was the first holiday that my parents

met our older children.  It was the first holiday

that my Mom made clothes for them.

Easter was when my younger boys' mother decided

to sign over her parental rights so that we could adopt them.

Easter was also the last holiday that I celebrated

with my Mom.

Although Easter is so much different without her,

here is what she's left me:

The desire to allow my kids to make memories that

involve Easter baskets, egg hunts, and church services;

 a true love of the holiday

of Easter and what it means for our faith.

 Mostly, she has left me with a life time

of memories of Easters that I shared with her

both as an adult and as a child.

Memories of new dresses, sunrises, hot crossed

buns.  Memories of

chocolate bunnies, colored eggs,

cakes baked just for the day,

Memories of the joy she had stitching up clothes for our

four kids, and the thrill of seeing Easter as a grandmother.

Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, the empty tomb,

the promise that one day, I will hug my Mom again, and

I will tell her how very much I've missed her.