Happy Easter

My husband had me come and look out our front windows when I first got up this morning. There under the bird feeders was the Easter bunny, munching on spilled sunflower seeds. He's still all white; no patches of brown yet. We observed Lent almost entirely this year. We only missed one mid-week service, on a night when it was already way below zero at 6:15 p.m. when we were due to leave. We went to church Maundy Thursday evening and Good Friday noon also. Yet still, we both remarked several times that it just hasn't seemed like Easter time. Truth to tell, I think it never seems like Easter since my husband retired. We were so in the center of the preparations then. It's too easy now. The last few services we didn't even bother with supper, just had a little toast or something when we got home. In days of yore my husband had to make up extra batches of sermons. I had to [or thought I had to] make supper, do dishes, and get five children relatively neat and clean. One year on Good Friday, our oldest son was invited to go roller skating at a rink and out to eat with a friend from down the street. He was eight or nine years old. I could see nothing wrong with it, but I must have had an inkling that my husband wouldn't agree. I called him at the church. Absolutely not! Nick was going to church. Our parsonage kitchen was small when all the kids were little. To make more room, my husband fashioned us a kitchen table of sorts from a beautiful old oak altar top. It was no longer in use and had been stuck in storage at the church. He cut a half moon on one side in the center of it. Our high chair sat against the kitchen wall. The altar/table was placed in front of it at the half moon point. Baby Peter sat in the high chair and looked out into the room. The rest of us sat on long benches and looked at either baby Peter or the kitchen wall. In those days I tried to save money on milk by mixing it with some that I made out of powdered milk. I kept the mix in a big glass pitcher. On one Lenten Wednesday morning our second youngest son, who was two, was standing on one of the long benches. He reached for that big glass pitcher. I stood up to keep him from it. He got that devilish look in his eyes that I remember so well. In order to keep away from me, he stepped off the end of the bench with that big pitcher in his hand. The milk spilled. The pitcher broke. Matthew stood up holding just the handle with one very sharp shard of glass still attached. Blood was pouring down the side of his face, soaking his pajamas and mixing with the milk on the floor. I called my husband at the church again. He rushed home. If anyone reading this knows Matt, look along,I think it is the right side of his face. You'll see the long scar there still. He came home from the clinic a little feverish, his face swollen and red and bluish with a long row of right-out-in-the-open stitches. There was no bandage. Do you know where Matthew and I and his sister and his brothers were at seven that evening? At the Lenten service, of course. How did I do that? Why did I do that? I can still see him lying there on my lap, asleep with his poor Frankenstein face pointing up. I don't know where my baby was. Probably his sister had him. She was a good little substitute mother. One of the church members told me later that she could hardly bear to look at Matt that night. It really grossed her out. But I was young and eager and foolish and my husband was no better. Somehow we all got through it. And we get through our quiet Easters too. We have peace now instead of excitement.