A New Kind of Easter

A New Kind of Easter

Easter is almost here! It is with mixed emotions that I prepare my family for this most special holiday. Easter is different this year for many reasons, and I must admit that I am longing for what it was in years past. We are not in Kentucky, where we have spent Easter for the last 10 years. We are not surrounded by family and old friends, dyeing and hunting for eggs, attending the church where we were married.

We are in a new place. If I crane my neck, I can see patches of grass outside and tiny buds on the trees. The green seems small in comparison to the concrete and brick apartment buildings surrounding them.

It sure doesn’t feel or look like Easter. This is not what I had in mind. It is in this attitude that I ponder Easter this year.

And there’s another change this Easter.

Nearly all my memories of Easter are intertwined with one person- my grandmother. Every year of my childhood, she bought an Easter outfit for me and my sisters. She bought the complete outfit- dress, hat, shawl, slip and tights. I hated then (and now) slips, but I knew Grandma would fuss if I went without. So every Easter morning, I dressed myself in my beautiful new clothes and went to church with my family.

After church, we went to Grandma’s house for a big lunch. Before we were allowed to eat or change into play clothes, we had to stand on her front steps and have our picture taken. It sounds so simple, but it felt like torture to us then. Many a conflict began with the words, “Let’s go take your picture…” But now, those pictures on her front porch are treasured mementos, a little timeline of the change of our family over the years. I love them.

Eventually, Grandma could not keep up with my teenage fashions. She took to giving me money so I could pick out my own Easter dress. Still, it felt like a gift from her. I continued to pose dutifully for my picture on the front steps.

When my children were born, she quit buying me clothes. All her shopping energies became focused once again on the children’s department. Every spring, she purchased a beautiful dress for my daughter and matching shirts for my sons. We lived in different states then, so my kids didn’t pose on the historic front porch. Instead, I took their pictures and mailed them to her.

Grandma won’t be buying their clothes this year. She’s not here anymore. She died tragically along with my grandfather in a car accident last fall. I don’t know how to do Easter without her, but I want to figure it out.

I have a few precious thoughts that I replay over and over in my mind as I think on these things.

One, the Lord gave me a wonderful visit with her just weeks before her death. Without really knowing why, I decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Knoxville. If you know me, doing anything spur of the moment is pretty out of character. So packing up a five year-old, three year-old, two year-old and four month-old for a 9 hour trip driving alone is not my norm. But I did it. I stayed for a week, and had a wonderful visit with my grandparents and the rest of the family. What I didn’t know then was that it was to be our last moments together.

Two, my mother passed on to me a phone conversation she had had with Grandma just days before her death. Dementia was creeping its way into my Grandmother’s seventy-nine year old mind. At times she was lucid and spunky as ever. But then there were moments of anxiety, fear and confusion. During one of her very clear and crisp moments, she proclaimed, “I’m ready to die. I’m not scared. I know that I will be with Jesus. “ I thank God for that declaration that brings me such comfort about where my Grandmother is spending Easter this year and every Easter to come.

So this year begins for me a different chapter for Easter celebrations. My first response was to gloss over Easter quickly, to leave the Easter decorations and books in the top of the closet and just get through the day. It feels too painful to look these things in the eye.

Or, I can celebrate Easter through these circumstances, in a deeper way, just as it really is and was alwaysmeant to be.

It was this deep darkness and sadness brought on by sin for which Jesus came. All of mankind and the earth itself was under the curse and penalty of sin and death. We are helpless, stuck. But Jesus came, giving His perfect life as a ransom for many, that we might be forgiven. It is at Easter that we see so clearly that the grave is not the end.

So tomorrow, I will celebrate Easter with my family. We’ll all get dressed up in new clothes and head to church. But when we get there, we won’t be thinking about our outfits anymore. I’ll be thinking about Grandma, seeing Easter in a new way this year. And I’ll be holding on to these words.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57

I will cry tomorrow, I’m sure, but I’m going to laugh, too. I have hope because of Jesus. Truly the sting of death for Grandma Jerry and for all those who love the Lord Jesus is gone! Thank you, Jesus.

Written in loving memory of Geraldine McCall 1930-2010