It feels a bit like sacrilege for a chocolate lover like myself to suggest that I don’t enjoy the holiday that encourages gifting of chocolate, but I don’t. I don’t like Easter.
Once upon a time, Easter was right up there as my favourite holiday, tied with my birthday and Christmas. As an older child, my Grandmother used to rent a beach house with a few of her friends and we would spend the Easter holidays on the beach. I have fond memories of communal Easter breakfasts of hot cross buns and waking up to find the house scattered in chocolate.
Inevitably, some years, Easter would land on my Grandmother’s birthday and we would celebrate doubly, often with seafood, family, and the never-ending supply of Red Tulip eggs. There was laughter and love and a general joy in the celebration of all things chocolate.
Then came cancer, and the slow slide down into death. Watching someone die is both more and less dramatic than you think it’s going to be. There is a privilege in witnessing the passing of someone, along with the inevitable realisation that the moment will be forever imprinted upon your brain.
Now Easter just feels like the beginning of my season of Sad. The slow slide down, remembering how we passed these moments four years ago (celebration, love, laughter, the knowledge of death hanging over our heads) and how we passed the moments to come.
Sometimes it feels like my sadness is an honour. It is an honour to love someone so much that the hole they leave in your life will never be full again. But sometimes my sadness is a weight, a giant millstone around my neck, reminding me that we’re missing someone, that she is missing everything and that nothing will ever be the same again.
I don’t like Easter anymore, because all I can remember is the Easter before she died, and all I want is for the next three months to pass me by quickly, filled as they are with painful anniversaries.
Tomorrow, the Easter Bunny will bring my children eggs and chocolate and their excitement is not quite enough to soothe my shattered soul. I will sit with them and eat chocolate, and I will remember exactly what we’re missing this holiday.
Easter will never be the same again.
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