From Easters Past

The morning air was crispy when I woke up to the sound of church bells.
Dressed in pink frocks my sister and I would wait for our cousins to join us.
Once they arrive, off we’d go for the sunrise Easter service held at the church we frequented every Sunday.

There was lightness in our steps and excitement in our expressions.
We looked like little dumplings (between 3 to 5 years old) tottering along, without a care in the world…excited because it’s Easter.
Easter meant good cheer, lots of singing, clapping and bonding in church; best of food and sweets at home; neighbors visiting each other, a general merriment all around.
It was like a mini-Christmas without the caroling, new clothes, gifts, Christmas-tree or Saint Nicholas (santa-claus) riding on a sleigh.

Unadulterated joy, uncorrupted smiles, you laugh when happy, cry when you are sad- oh if not for the innocence of childhood, we all would have been a humanity bereft of real, absolute, irrefutable sense of goodness and bliss.

Little did I know then the true meaning of Easter.

It was a family prayer meeting. She looked radiant and serene in her cotton house coat. With a bible in her hand, prayer in her lips, mom spoke about the real meaning of Easter.

I was sixteen. Rebellious and disobedient, defiant and sulking, presumptuous, snobbish, vainglorious and all puffed out in my attitude (adolescence at it’s best); I was everything but sweet.

But that day, when mom spoke, I listened. Dumbstruck I was. The revered Jesus Christ was crucified. He was found guilty for no wrong. My sense of justice was stirred. How could anyone kill a good man? Peeved I was. Anger turned to humility when I learned that his crucifixion was a sacrifice, for the atonement of humanity’s sins.
His triumph over death was victory over injustice. At sixteen, this story had poetic justice. I was contented.

Through the years, Christ’s death on the cross came to hold new meaning for me. Each time I read a verse from the gospels, it’s like pealing off a petal (one at a time) from a rose bud. With each petal, I learn a truth. Each revelation mesmerizes me.

I am no theologian neither am I a saint.

I see those foot-prints in the sand. Sometimes there are two pairs of footprints- Christ and mine. Sometimes there is just a pair- His. It’s because at those times, Christ is carrying me, since my bones are weak and I cannot walk straight.
Yeah, I am just a simple (at times, foolish) girl, clumsily-stumbling my way through life.

But, Christ death and resurrection holds more meaning for me now than it did when I was that girl-child in a pink frock.

Waking up this morning in Bangalore city, more than two decades since I was five, memories of Easters gone by swamped my thoughts. In each of these memories, I remember her. She seemed to be the central figure- the one with the smile and the hug, who made us wolf-down a breakfast of bread, cornflakes and milk before each Easter sunrise-service; the one who cooked a sumptuous lunch & dinner after-wards.

I wept.
For I miss her dearly. Last Easter, I was with her in Chennai at one of the lodges. She was recuperating from one of her chemotherapy sessions. We had prayed together. I did not know it would be our last Easter together.

I wept cause Easter was her favorite celebration.
I wept cause I am remorseful of not-following most of what she’s taught me.

And, believe it or not, I weep cause I am a wee bit excited.
Excited & slightly afraid about new-beginnings.

That Easter morning when Christ resurrected, it marked the beginning of a new-era.
If I humble myself, it could be the genesis of a new lifting attitude within me, a new-creation.

When mom was around, by this time, our garden would be blossoming with the all-season red and yellow roses, the red azaleas & pink camellias, the purple sweet pea and her favorite, bougainvillea.

Her blossoming garden was the mark of the advent of spring.

If I humble myself, my heart could herald the beginning of spring.

Ah, in the word’s of Robin Williams ‘Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"