Last Easter, my family gathered at my maternal grandparents' house for dinner together, photos, and merriment. This Easter, my family gathered at my maternal grandparents' house for a funeral as both of those grandparents are now gone, both dead in the past six weeks. I find it kind of a paradox at Easter to get together this year to mourn the passing of these two transformative people, but I guess I'm old enough now where this will be normal. I think it's funny how much can change in a year. I think about all the people I knew and loved that I no longer see anymore, and I think about Easter and what it means.
Regardless of which tradition you observe, Easter means new beginnings, new growth, and new life. Naturally, it comes in the spring when buds break forth, bees buzz in the trees, birds sing songs to attract mates, and when women all around me shed their clothes and decency in order to catch a man's eye. Why then, this Easter, do I feel so much loss and grief? It should be about new hope, new opportunities, and new life?
I moved to Vegas with hope for change. That was before Barack OBama butchered and bastardized that notion. I know that sounds annoying, but I really did think that I would have new and better opportunities going somewhere else. Since that thus far failed to materialize, I hesitate to follow counsel to move again. It won't necessarily be better; it will only be different, and I'm not sure by how much. I started a career, bought a house, made some friends, got into shape, and waited. Despite all the increased fitness, both physically and economically, my life remains much as it has been since I was divorced, and I go to my domicile at night and crash, having burnt myself out during the day doing what I do.
Over the past several years, I've lost a lot of people who were important. Some of them were family, and that's a difficult wound to salve, because those were people on whom I could rely. Now, where would I stay if I had car trouble or bad weather while passing through that part of the country? Now, where would I eat if I had no money (thank God that hasn't been a real worry for many years)? Now who will send me birthday cards and celebrate my promotions and get excited if and when I finally find a woman to marry me? Some of the others I lost were friends. Losing them is also tough, because I chose them and chose to invest my life and time in building a relationship with them. The rest were people who apparently said things they didn't really mean. Some of them, I hoped meant what they said.
I'm writing this without finishing the experience and without fully processing how I feel. I know that I'll also spend some of the time thinking about what Easter means, what it means to me as a person, and what it means to people of faith like myself. There will be more beginnings, new beginnings, and for those who believe as I do, ultimately a reunion with those we love on a verdant shore in a far and pleasant country. It's not my time to go there yet, either for family taken by death or for friends taken by circumstance. I love and miss them all, and parting doesn't seem sweet at all. However, goodbye is necessary for each hello. Each farewell is a prelude to a reunion. I know that sometimes farewells do not lead to reunions, but I have been reunited enough with those I really love to know that if it doesn't happen, it's for good reason. It's not because they didn't desire to see me again; it's because they were unable or else they were not allowed to return.
Each year, my garden leafs out into blooms and buds aplenty. This year, I have enough that I can sit on the porch and listen to the buzzing bees pollinate the blooms. Maybe I'm stuck in the perpetual winter of my life. Eventually, winter always does and always must give way to new life, new love, and a new hope. Christ, whose resurrection I commemorate this weekend, told His disciples, "I come that they might have life and have it more abundantly". Some day, every tear will be brushed away, every pain healed, every promise kept, and every reward received. I guess today is not that day. Maybe tomorrow.
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