When I realize that Easter is around the corner, I get unsettled. I admit I avoid identifying the date on the calendar until I am reminded by ads or a reminder that I get Good Friday off work. Of course, I follow lent beginning with Ash Wednesday and there are always the Fish Fry reminders, but the moment that I get that date, something starts feeling off. I wish I could describe it better. It’s that… something is coming … and it creates anxiety. I am short tempered. I need more hugs (which most know, I’m not a hugger), but I crave being closer to Nathan and the girls. Almost six years in and I think I have put my finger on it.
Easter was the last holiday with Jack. The last family church outing where we were all “dressed up”, took pictures, dyed eggs, and ate a meal with extended family as a WHOLE family. The picture of my beautiful boy that we used to celebrate his life was taken on our front porch Easter Sunday. I only like the pictures of him from his waist up because I could see the vape in his pocket on the full body pictures and I hated that thing. I complained that it showed in those pictures and he just smiled and said, “I know mom.”
This season brings the looping of the lasts. Where was Jack the night before Easter? He spent the night out at the last minute. The call that he was tired and didn’t want to drive and I was upset because I worried he wouldn’t make it home for church. But he did…
The loop of his world and the things we said and did in the coming weeks between Easter and May 13th. He did a lot “right”. Finished school, went to work, bought his first car independently (never even made a payment on it before it was totaled), agreed to live by our rules or acknowledged he couldn’t stay in our home. He experienced great loss in those weeks. One of his friends chose not to live and he struggled and hurt for his mom. I attended that funeral with him and I am so thankful we had that car time on the way there and home to talk. He was hurting. I don’t think I had the right words, but the time … together… he could trust me to cry in front of me for his friend.
He was constantly pulled over by the local police for random small infractions like… a too loud muffler and a mirror that was not turned the right way. I would go so far as to say targeted (in fairness, he had earned the reputation by making bad choices), and Nathan and I told him that he had to do what was right and follow the law and eventually they would get tired. We stood by our word that if he got pulled over and earned a visit to traffic court we were out because he was 18 as he constantly reminded us. Interestingly, his Grandpa and Grana weren’t having that because they listened to his story and took the ticket to a friend that was an attorney and were prepared to help Jack fight it. The day in court never came because of the accident. I wonder if when my dad and Jack were reunited Jack thanked him for having his back on that ticket.
All the stories of where he went that last week. People he hadn’t seen in a long time. The number of miles he put on that new car in a week. The dirty hand print he left on my wall the day he walked out the door. He had been working on the farm in the rain and left his muddy boots and a dirty handprint behind. I told him to be careful that night when he left because it was raining and he said…”so drive really fast?” And giggled. Then he said, “I love you mom”. He left me with that and a dirty handprint. When we moved to Louisville in 2020, I left that handprint and apologized to the new owners that I just couldn’t clean it. I have heard from mutual friends that it is still there. Several friends and family wear his fingerprint around our necks, but we don’t really need to… he left his handprint all over our hearts and minds.
So, the weeks before Easter starts this incessant remembering. I listen to more music. I ingest the words and take them to heart. Music is powerful. Cathartic. I feel everything more. Weird, even TV Shows or News Articles generate more empathy and open the scab of the last Whole family celebration- Easter- to the knock on the door. While the bunny and the eggs bring fun family memories, the sacrifice of Good Friday to the tomb being rolled away flood my heart and mind with a mass of indescribable emotions. I am desperately thankful and appreciative because this gift… this sacrifice of our heavenly Father assured my son is living the ultimate. Until our reunion, I anticipate this season will continue to feel uncomfortable, but conclude with unlimited gratitude that the tomb was empty.