Today is Easter Sunday

Easter...one of my favorite holidays. There was such a build-up to Easter in our house. My Grandmother Swayne always made me a new dress for Easter. When I was old enough, I got to go with her to the store to pick out a pattern and material. My family used to go to my grandparents' house every weekend, so it was exciting to come down each Friday night and see how my new dress was progressing. I'd get to try it on for fit before she moved on to the next steps. Then she'd take me down to Nolan's in Auburn (the shoe store). Jimmy & I loved Nolan's. They had a teeny, tiny, little merry-go-round right in the store that you got to ride. Gram always bought me a brand new pair of paten-leather shoes. Every year, I'd BEG for the black ones and every year she bought white. There may have been one or two years that she gave in and bought black, but she was bound and determined to buy white to match the dresses she made me.

Then Easter arrived! The Easter bunny hid our baskets and it was so much fun to find them. I always found Jimmy's first - it was so big compared to mine that there weren't very many places to hide it! I'd get all dressed up in my new dress and shoes and we'd go to church. This was the best because on Easter I got to stay in church and not go out to Sunday school. I made sure I sat next to Grandma and not my mother. Mom would shush me if I got fidgety...Gram handed out candy! We went to a old church in the Village of Owasco where everyone sat in the same exact spot in the pews. I knew exactly where I belonged. We'd head over to my Dad's parents for dinner some years. My grandparents hard-boiled four eggs, then taped a silver dollar to each one and hid them around the house. Jimmy, my two older cousins, and I would have to find one each. It was only one egg with a silver dollar taped to it, but to me it was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

After Jim & Kate moved South (and then later to Wisconsin), every year we traveled to his house for Easter . Sometimes it was just me and the kids. Sometimes Mom, or Mom and Dad, went too. It was at Jimmy's that I became the "egg hunt queen." When my niece and nephew were too small for candy in their plastic eggs, I hid age-appropriate toys. We were there last Easter when Jimmy was recovering from cryoablation surgery on his liver. I video-taped the Easter egg hunt and got a bit of Jimmy helping out Rachel by directing her to the eggs. I'm grateful to have gotten him on film - it was quite by accident as I was really just following the kids around.

This year I'm home thanks to the HF-L school district. Instead of an Easter break, my kids got a week off in February and another in April. I was pretty disappointed. Especially this year, I wanted to be with my niece and nephew. My sister-in-law was wonderful and let me send out the eggs for the hunt, even though I couldn't be there. I can't wait to see pictures.

I miss Jimmy a lot today. Our paths in life came together at Easter more than any other holiday. It might seem strange that I would feel his absence the most on Easter, but I do. Easter was kind of our thing, now it's just kind of mine.