The other day my mother wrote to ask if I remember going on an easter egg hunt in a Bremerton park and finding the prized golden egg – a mighty achievement in that destitute town. I had forgotten, but her query brought the whole experience back instantly: the sloping hard-packed earth, the pine needles on the ground, the chaos of other children running helter-skelter, grabbing and shoving.
When I went to the stage to exchange the shiny egg for a special prize the woman in charge handed me a doll, and I did not know how to ask for what I really wanted. I walked away in tears, but my mother understood and patiently took me back to exchange the toy for Play-doh. How old was I then? Perhaps three.
I was not raised with religion, but I did have a family, and holidays were always very important. Today I should be at my grandmother’s farm, sitting at the big oak table, laughing with my aunts and uncles (never the cousins – I hung out with the grownups). But they’re mostly all gone, along with the farm, and I live on the other side of the world.
Recent events back home have been very difficult for everyone concerned and I could not go back to help. I wrote to my mother and said I’m sorry– and I am. I feel real sorrow over the fact that I grew up and away and have lost that family, even if choosing a different life was the right thing to do.
She wrote back that I am not allowed to be sorry – never, not about anything.
This is the first Easter my son has been away from me, the first year in my entire adult life that I have not been woken by children clamoring for their baskets.
December was dark, April is bright. I will not see my son for an entire month and by the time we meet again he may well have grown the two inches required to exceed my height. Everything is changing, and this is wonderful and painful in equal measure.
I know that I am a lucky person, but I recognize that life is a series of perilous and fortuitous choices. I’m crying right now but tonight I’ll have dinner with Jean and whoever else shows up, and laugh, and feel endlessly thankful for community, friendship, family, springtime