TheBanyanTree: Happy Easter!

[Margaret R. Kramer]

There’s something to be said about an Easter in March in Minnesota where it
doesn’t stop snowing.  We’ve been in a snow drought since Christmas, but on
this Easter weekend the cold air and the moisture in the atmosphere have
mixed together and we’ve been getting spits and spats of snow.  It’s enough
to shovel, too.

But I haven’t done much shoveling.  I share a driveway with my next door
neighbor, who I dislike.  I dislike her for frivolous reasons, mostly that
she talks too much and doesn’t say much of anything that’s worth listening
to.  My son says she’s just trying to be friendly.  Yeah, right.  To me she’
s annoying, so I avoid talking to her like the plague.

Her daughters, whom she adores, I don’t know what she’s going to do if they
ever get boyfriends or married or have children and aren’t able to spend
every holiday with her, are home from college.  My neighbor whines and cries
if she has to shovel an inch of light powdery snow.  With her daughters
home, she has them go out and do the shoveling.  This snow is wet and heavy
and they don’t do a really good job, but there it is.

I feel bad for them in a way.  They don’t really live there, so why should
they shovel?  My neighbor does almost nothing when her daughters are at
school, so when they come home, she puts them to work.

I don’t feel too guilty actually.  I’ve done the shoveling for 99% of this
winter, especially when my neighbor was out of town during some of the
heaviest snowfalls and then I did their sidewalks as well as my own.  After
that first big snowstorm I had been outside killing myself shoveling her
walks and the big driveway, because our snowblower didn’t work, Ray told me
I was “a good kid, because I know you don’t like her too much.”  Yes, doing
the right thing always scores points.

Well, anyway, it’s snowing this Easter, which isn’t fun for little girls who
are wearing light cotton pastel dresses to church this morning.

This is the first Easter that I didn’t buy Peeps.  Ray loved Peeps.  He
loved sugar laden candies and his stash of candy is still in his desk
drawer.  I bought him Peeps for Valentine’s Day, but because his digestive
system was rocking and rolling, he was only able to eat one.  He asked for
one of the Valentine Peeps (they had followed him to the ICU) on the Friday
night before he died, while Asher and I were keeping our vigil with him.  We
looked at the nurse and then she looked at him, and told him no.  His colon
was still greatly inflamed and we thought a Peep would upset it.  If only we
knew he was going to die soon, what difference would a stupid Peep make?

I’m glad Easter is the first holiday on my cycle getting through this year
without Ray.  Easter is a gentle holiday, a quieter one without lots of
fanfare.  I was planning on hosting.  I bought the ham, the potatoes, and
the rolls.  But Susan’s parents want to host, so we’re going over there.  In
a way, it’s nice not to fuss, but in another way, I’d rather be alone and
just forget the whole thing.

And I’m glad Easter is in March, because then April will be clutter free.  I
won’t have to deal with death and funerals and nasty stepchildren and
holidays and lazy neighbors.  April will be mine alone.

I was planning to go out to see Ray’s grave today.  But I’m not sure if it
has a headstone yet and I don’t know if I would be able to find it without
one.  I’ll wait for a nicer, snow free day to go visit.  He’s with me all
the time anyway, so I don’t need to hang out at the grave, but I’d like to
put some flowers on it when spring really gets here.

My grief group saves me, it really does.  I knew I needed a group about two
days after Ray died.  And I looked and looked online for one.  It took a bit
of digging and juggling words on the search engine, but I finally found this
one.  It’s sponsored by the churches in downtown Minneapolis.  Every quarter
it moves to a different church.  It meets on Saturday mornings.  There is a
social time, then a half hour presentation, and then we break into
discussion groups for an hour, based on the type of loss we have; child,
family member, or spouse.

I’ve gone three times so far.  The speakers have been excellent.  The first
speaker lost his wife 10 years ago in a car accident.  He hasn’t remarried
and they didn’t have children.  He talked about imagining a snow globe and
visiting with his wife inside the cocoon of the globe.  I do that all the
time with Ray.  We’re always in a snow globe together.  And my lazy neighbor
is shoveling the driveway!

The second speaker lost his son in a car accident three years ago.  His son
had just graduated from Penn State and had started his first professional
job when he was killed.  The speaker told us that for a long time he wore
his son’s clothes, slept in his son’s bed, and was unable to function.  To
this day, he has never read the sympathy cards people sent to him.

The speaker yesterday was a pastor.  She had lost her father and spoke about
her feelings of loss, as well as asking us how we were dealing with our
grief.  She was so quiet and so gentle, that we forgot how sad we were and
were able to look at our grief as a process of healing, not as a horrible
state of mind.

Something interesting happened to me while she was speaking.  I saw her
aura.  It was as bright and clear as anything I’ve ever seen before.  I
couldn’t believe it, and I kept shifting my eyes around and tilting my head
and then looked at other people, but her aura would not go away.  Then I saw
a face behind her aura, who was also brightly lit.  At first, I thought it
was Ray, but then I knew it wasn’t, it was her father.  He was within her
aura.  It was not at all creepy or anything, I was glad that her father was
with her.

So I’m going nuts, right?  I don’t know.  But I can’t help but wonder if
there is something to after death communication (ADC).  It’s a common thread
through many cultures and maybe we’re programmed genetically to accept
messages from our loved ones after they leave.  I’ve read a few books about
it well before Ray passed away and I’m reading one now.

I lost one of my amber earrings earlier this winter.  I bought the earrings
when Ray and I visited a dinosaur museum in North Dakota a few years back.
Well, on Wednesday, when I got home from work, there it was, right in the
center of the doormat by our side door.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

www.polarispublications.com

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in
truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~Kahlil Gibran
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