No presents at Christmas. No chocolate at Easter. It’s the big occasions that feel especially poignant since my mother died almost seven years ago. She’d been married on April 18th, which happened to be Easter Sunday in 1954 and, a devout Christian all her life, she commemorated the birth and death of Jesus with great intensity.
Although I have no religious beliefs, I feel her passing more keenly at Easter. Although Christmas is nothing less than miserable now, I am more tearful at Easter because of my parents’ wedding anniversary and Mum’s death – and the memories I have of Easter as a kid.
I loved it.
We had Good Friday off school and the first task of the day was to walk to “Jean the shop” in the village of Coity, Bridgend, to pick up the freshly baked hot cross buns. They were still warm by the time I got them home and having them for breakfast in place of regular cereal is a treat I remember to this day.
Then there was Easter Sunday and all that chocolate. I recall a year when the mother of Bev, who worked in my mother’s salon, brought me a white rabbit, stuffed to the gills with chocolate bars; my brother had a blue dog with the same. Always we had around eight eggs. I recall the excitement of the brown cellophane bag of brown discs inside the Buttons egg; the first crack of that thick outer rim of an oval chocolate bowl; the wolfing down of the Sunday roast, desperate to enter combat once more with this rare brown, sugary feast. Oh, and the mugs – the added bonus of your very own cup, again, with more chocolate overflowing at the rim.
And afterwards, the stress of Easter Monday – sitting for hours in Bank Holiday traffic and arriving at Southerndown beach just in time to see the last of the tide disappear over the horizon, before heading back home, lucky if we made it in time for News at Ten. It was the journey, not the arrival that counted – or so my parents kept assuring my brother and me, buckets and spades destined to spend another year in the boot of the car.
The church part of Easter I found infinitely depressing: all those hymns about old rugged crosses and bleeding limbs, and Bible tales about Jesus being force fed vinegar. It’s actually quite disturbing to a young mind, and even the “joy” of the resurrection story was a little frightening. Dead people coming to life always worried me. I recall the picture of Lazarus in my Children’s Bible, leaping up from his open coffin when Jesus decided to raise him from his rigor mortis; the locals looked more terrified than thrilled.
I also couldn’t help feeling that they must have felt a bit miffed that Jesus had singled out this man; if he could do one, couldn’t he go along to the local graveyard and perform the same trick on everyone else? My theory is that Lazarus wasn’t really dead at all, just in a heavy sleep – like those people today who are pronounced dead and wake up just as the embalmer is rolling up his or her sleeves.
So, I felt the same sense of creepiness and disbelief when Jesus allegedly escaped from his tomb – or “rose from the dead”, if that’s your thing. I was indoctrinated by my Christian background to accept this version of events and I have no problem with anyone who wishes to believe that this momentous event was to save mankind from sin (how’s that working out for you, by the way?).
Now, I think it no less ludicrous than Scientology, although I acknowledge that living one’s life according to the Christian principles of goodness and truth is the best way (leaving aside the bits about crusades and killing everyone who disagrees with you, not to mention the lunatics who think the Bible is one book, it’s a pretty good philosophy).
I just don’t believe that we rise from the dead. I don’t even want to. It’s a nice comforting thought to help humans deal with the fact that our breathing stops (all religions have their version of this), but that doesn’t make it true. I feel joyous in the knowledge that we pass things on while we are living, so many things that influence the lives of future generations; that, to me, is everlasting life, and I take immense pleasure in its simplicity. And, to be honest, there aren’t many people I ever want to see again; I’m done with most of you already, to be honest.
So, with no chocolate, no church, and everyone with plans, it’s going to be another quiet Easter. I confess to crying when I see the Lindt bunnies in shops, warm in their gold foil and red ribbon scarves. Mum bought be one every year when she stopped buying me eggs, as I was never a huge chocolate fan once childhood passed. These days, I can make a Kit Kat last a month.
I’ve managed to avoid bonnets and parades on TV, grateful that I am not caught up amongst the ribbons and bows. I won’t be listening to any services churning out dirges about death, and I won’t even be eating any chocolate.
Nevertheless, a Happy Easter to you all, whatever your beliefs or disbeliefs.
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die . . . Or maybe not.
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