Easter Day

Seven years ago my grandfather, who I lived with at the time, died during Holy Week at the age of 91. Being in church and hearing the Easter sermon about the power of resurrection is not easy when you have a loved one waiting to be buried, especially a loved on who you started to think might live forever. Easter has been hard since then. It makes me think about his death.

I was married the Friday after Easter 2 years ago. I remember that I dropped off my wedding dress at the church on Good Friday. I needed a place where it could hang so the train would not get wrinkled. I apologized profusely to the rector of our church for doing something as frivolous as dropping of a dress during the most solemn time in the Christian year. She reminded me that amidst everything there is life.

This year Easter feels a little different to me. Not just because I finally have a household member who shares my devotion to Peeps, but because I understood what she was saying. I still live in my grandfather's house. My husband and I bought it from my dad last year.

We spent the past year and a half getting almost all of my grandparents' things out of the house. That has been hard for me. It feels disrespectful and sad to dismantle this home. I still remember being a kid and visiting here. I don't think that any other human being has ever loved me as much as my father's mother did. Sometimes at night in the summer I can still lie in my bed and hear the sounds of the city around me. While I watch the shadows in the corner of my bedroom and smell the smells of an old house I can go back to the summer nights that I stayed here before they took me on vacation with them to the beach. I loved those trips. I loved my grandparents. And I love the new life that is springing up right here, where my father was born, where I was happiest as a child, amidst everything.