Flashback Friday

For Flashback Friday, I figured I’d go back to some Easter memories since it’s Easter weekend.  I described here what our Easter traditions are now.  I don’t really remember a lot as far as traditions go.  I remember my dad being in passion plays.  I remember getting to hold palm branches but I don’t remember why, as in, in the actual play, or if they just let the kids hold them.  I don’t remember anything about the plays, obviously I know the story, but I don’t remember my dad actually performing.  For all I know, I don’t remember anything right.  I have a distinct memory from his funeral that my mom says never happened.  So who knows.

Every Easter morning, my brother and I would wake up.  Well, my brother woke up, then woke me up.  He always got up at the asscrack of dawn.  And our job when we woke up, was to find our Easter baskets that the Easter bunny hid.  I don’t remember a lot of years of searching, but I remember one hiding place.  It was probably the best place it was ever hidden.  I think we had to ask for hints because we could not find them.  Wait a minute, we asked my mom for hints but how did she know where the Easter bunny hid it?  I’m so confused.  Ooohhhh, she probably went to make breakfast and realized they were in the oven.  Wait a minute, my mom doesn’t know how to use the oven so that couldn’t be it.  Anyways, I remember them being in the stove.  We got the usual Easter baskets, colorful, weaved, with Easter grass.  Usually loose jelly beans at the bottom, that must be where those cravings come from.  All kinds of candy, maybe a toy or some kind of an item that meant something.  I want to say matchbox cars were in there for years.  Always a chocolate bunny.

My brother, me and my 2 cousins on Easter - 1985

This went on for years.  And my mom loved that tradition, she loved giving, to us or anyone.  She still does.  She truly is in it for the giving, wait until I talk about Christmas.  I remember being the know it all teenager, you remember those years, where the only thing that matters is what you think.  You don’t care what anybody else thinks or how they feel.  I remember just sitting in the living room, and my mom was trying to get us to go look for our baskets.  I just sat there, knowing I was taking away her fun, intentionally taking it away.  I figured eventually, she’d just take it from it’s hiding spot and give it to me, and she did.

I look back now at how I must have made her feel.  And I hate that I did that.  Certainly not WWTJD (What Would Teenage Jesus Do).  I was an ass, I was selfish, I was a teenager.

But here I am, doing the same things to my kids.  Although we use Easter buckets now and no grass.  But my wife and I hide their buckets every year   And they love it.  And it’s the tradition that they know.  Until they become teenagers, and treat me like I did my mom.  I’ll complain to her, and she’ll just smile that knowing smile.  Because inside, she remembers how she felt.  And she’ll be sad because of that.  Or is that her evil smile, and inside she’s laughing her ass off.  Yeah, it’s probably that one.