Easter with Boys

Elijah (in back), Sean, Ronnie, Steven, Noah, Josiah and Luke

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
- Pope John Paul II

We went to my parents for Easter this year, and all the little cousins were there.

Luke

No Easter is complete without an egg hunt, but we decided to have two egg hunts, one for the little boys and a more challenging hunt for the big boys.

Luke, Noah, Josiah and Ronnie

So the little boys collected eggs from the bushes and from places low enough for them to reach.

We decided we ought to draw a little blood from the older boys before letting them have their sugar fix so we hid them among some of the cactus and thornier plants, like this one among the thorns in the palm.

We even found an egg that was hidden so well that nobody found it last year. The M&M's fared better than one might expect after a year out in the elements inside a plastic egg, but we still couldn't convince anyone to try them.

Then the obligatory wrestling match, with Steven, Sean and Ronnie matched up against their 16-year old cousin Elijah.

The little boys wanted to get in on it too, but since we really didn't want to add a trip to the emergency room to our activities for the day, we vetoed them.

A belated Happy Easter to all.

- Kathleen

A Good Friday Vision

Taylor right after her surgery in Florida

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.
- St. Augustine

Lent this year for me was most strongly marked in my memory by the death of that little girl, Taylor, whose death continues to pain me very strongly.

I was so distraught over what happened that I emailed the doctor who was in charge of her treatment when she died. He was kind enough to call me and attempt to reassure me that what happened to her was inevitable, that I did not do wrong to recommend to her parents that she look into that treatment.

She was embarking down the road of a difficult treatment, but she hadn't even gotten to the point of getting the most toxic drugs, the swelling overtook her brainstem after only her second dose of chemotherapy.

The photo above, taken less than a week before she died belies the monster growing in her head. Still, I have questions about what happened. I've seen things go wrong before, but what happened to this little girl seems like just too much.

We attended Good Friday evening services at our church this year. Good Friday services are always very somber, and near the end of the service everyone filed past the cross, to pay homage to the price that Jesus paid for us.

As I walked away from the cross and back to my seat, I had what can only be described as a vision or maybe just a hallucination representative of some of the turmoil in my head these days.

I saw, as clearly as if they were standing directly in front of me, Taylor in the arms of Jesus. She was smiling and waving at me.

I pray it's true, that she's really there, just like that.

So many times when someone dies, people say, "they're in a better place." They may be in a better place, but we as parents are programmed to be responsible for our children and to take care of them, to die for them if necessary, and it is not an easy thing to accept that there is any better place for them to be than with us.

So please, keep Taylor's family in your thoughts and prayers.

- Kathleen