IN YOUR EASTER BONNET...

1 April 2002

It was a yearly tradition. Each year before Easter, our mother would take my sister and me out and look for new Easter dresses. We'd get a new easter bonnet too, and then on Easter Sunday morning, my parents would look for a scenic spot to take our photos dressed in our Easter finery. (I don't know why I remember that the coats my sister and I are wearing in this photo—I'm the older one—were made especially for us by seamstress Olga Gayno. It was the only time I've ever been fitted by a seamstress and had something made especially to my own measurements, except, of course, for when my mother would make something for me. Olga Gayno made our hats too.)

Our Easter traditions always consisted of getting up in the morning and having an egg hunt in the living room (because we didn't have a garden). There would be a basket with a stuffed bunny in it waiting for us, and then the hunt was on for all the eggs hidden under couchs, behind pillows and on bookcases.

Then we'd get into our new Easter outfits, take our new Easter bunnies, and go off to church to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead.

I suppose it never occurred to me how incongruous the combining of religion and secular was. Never quite sure what those Easter bunnies had to do with Jesus rising from the dead.

After Mass there would be a special breakfast and then in the afternoon my paternal grandparents and my godfather would come to the house for a nice dinner--either ham or lamb.

And so it went, every Easter throughout my childhood.

When we had children of our own, we continued the traditions. Each year new outfits for the kids—matching, if possible. And the morning Easter egg hunt (though since we had a back yard, it became an outdoor activity. Always an egg hidden on top of the jungle gym. We learned that Jeri would look out her upstairs window and see how many eggs she could spot before the hunt began.)

Mass grew to be less and less important, I fear, as the years went on, and the Ressurection kind of took a back seat to the secular celebration.

Today Walt went off to Mass, while I stayed here at home. And then we made plans to join the family for Easter dinner at his brother's house. As I started to think about what I would wear, I decided to try on a suit which my friend Lynn gave me for my birthday two years ago.

When she bought it for me, there was no way on earth that I could squeeze my body into it. The shirt buttons didn't meet and the pants never made it past the paniculus. (look it up)

A month ago, I decided to check the suit out again. To my delight, it was starting to fit better. I could actually pull the pants up, though there was no way I could sit down in them. And the shirt buttoned easily. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be able to wear it, finally.

I tried the suit on again this morning, and it slipped on easily. I could not only wear the pants, but I could sit in them as well. And so I put on my new Easter finery and went off to join with the family for Easter dinner. I felt as if I'd just come from a session with Olga Gayno.

In fact, when I was standing with Tom this afternoon, I suddenly handed the camera to Walt and asked him to take our picture together--and I never willingly have my photo taken.