That’s me in the middle with the sausage curls. Mom used to either pin curl my hair or use a Toni Home Perm. Remember those? Grandma’s snuggling Trinket. Bubby is behind me. Tim-Tam and Tissy Rae to the left.
One of my favorite memories is Easter Morning out at the farm. Sometimes all the cousins would be there. We’d all get dressed in our Easter finery and head to the little white church on the hill down the road. There would usually be a crowd there…maybe twenty-five, thirty people. When I was really little, Reverend Proudfoot would come preach if it was our turn on the circuit. I liked him. He often had lunch with us at Grandma and PopPop’s dinner table. When I got older, it was Preacher Simon. He scared the daylights out of me. If Easter didn’t fall on Preaching Sunday, either my PopPop or his brother, Uncle Red, would lead the services and give a bible study. But whoever it was, Easter filled me with awe because Jesus actually rose from the dead that day! It was amazing and wondrous!
We always had to have our pictures taken in our nice clothes…most often in front of some of Grandma’s pretty spring posies. Then we had to change before we ate the scrumptious dinner she made. If we were lucky, we’d have a ham that PopPop cured in the old smokehouse. Grandma would raid the cellar house and bring in jars of her home canned green beans, roast beef, corn, pickles, and her prized blackcap jelly to add to the meal. She’d put out a whole loaf of sliced bread and some of her home churned butter. On her trip to town the week before, she’d buy a head of cabbage and mix up some coleslaw just before we ate so it would be crispy and sour sweet. We would eat till we were stuffed as ticks and have to waddle out to the front porch to sit for a while if it was warm enough.
Us kids would play Tag, Duck-Duck-Goose, Button-Button-Who’s-Got-The-Button, Fox-In-The-Henhouse, and The Telephone Game. We’d have a big Easter Egg Hunt looking for all the eggs Grandma and our Moms hid for us. When we were tired, we’d each get a chance to snuggle up on someone’s lap for a cuddle and if we were really lucky we’d get a little bowl of Grandma’s homemade ice cream. She didn’t make it in an ice cream freezer. She had a loaf pan and she’d pour the hot custard in it. When it was cool enough, she put it in the freezer. She’d check it often and just before it froze solid, she’d take it out and beat the heck out of it with a big spoon and put it back in the freezer. She repeated this several times then she’d leave it in there to firm up. It was so good!
It was a very special Easter if our Aunt Rosie came with Cousin Cathy. Her give name was Catherine, but Grandma always called her Trinket. So, that’s what I usually call her, too. We lost our Aunt Rosie in January this year, and Trinket is bringing her ashes home at the end of this month so all the cousins are going to be together for the first time in nearly thirty years. There will be lots of stories to tell and we’ll just have a big time!
In the meantime, my prayer is that you have a Blessed Easter Day filled with the same reverence and awe we felt as children sitting in the wooden pews of that one room church house in the hills of West Virginia. May your day be one of connection and love and joy!
Happy Easter…He is Risen!
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“At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus. They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.”
Luke 24:1-8 MSG