My post is a day late, for which I apologize but plead Easter. As we have every Easter since I was two, my family gathered at the same house—the home where my three brothers and I grew up, and where our mother, now 88, still lives. I realize now, with the more appreciative eyes that age and experience bring, the gift of all of those Easters. I have memories of the annual shopping ritual at Hutzler’s or Hochschild Kohn's with my mother, where we would purchase a pastel spring dress for me (unless my mother had made it that year); my Easter hat , which would be presented to us at the counter in its own perfect round box with a silken rope handle; patent leather shoes, white gloves, and finally, a tiny pocketbook which I would try to fill with items so as to make it seem like a needed accessory, rather than a useless ornament. Back then, my mother was able to exercise more control over her only daughter’s appearance, and so I was apt to wear girly pinks and pale lavenders and soft yellows, with ruffles and crinolines making my dresses stick out. There was a reliable rhythm to our holidays, and this particular one was infused with a lightness, probably due to the fact that it coincides with spring and rebirth and longer days, even though it is considered the most serious and important of Christian holidays.

On Easter morning, my brothers and I woke to clever little clues our parents had written and left for us the night before to help us find our Easter baskets, which had been hidden. Did we do the Easter basket thing before going to church? We must have—I can’t imagine that we would have waited. But afterwards, shoes that had been polished the night before were put on by my brothers, hair was combed and made to cooperate, and we would be herded into our car to try to make it to church on time. After the service we headed back home for a splendid Easter dinner, with grandparents joining us. My brothers and I would explore our baskets thoroughly and bump our dyed hard-boiled eggs together to see which cracked first (the loser.) What was the name of the game? One year I received a sugary egg with a small, oval window in it through which I could view a little panoramic scene. After the big meal, we kids might venture outside to meet up with friends in the neighborhood to play one of our usual games, like cops and robbers on bikes.

Yesterday, we gathered once again in the same simple brick house. As is often my way, I was there participating in it, but also observing it. There was such love in it—all of it. Love in the green jello mold with the pineapple rings. Love in the carefully placed Easter decorations—bunnies, and eggs, and flowers. Love in the framed pictures on the mantel—most depicting those of us who were there, but some depicting family members who no longer live nearby, and a few of family members who are no longer with us, except in our memories. Love in the gathering of aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews, mothers and fathers and a grandmother--some who during these politically heightened times feel our country needs desperately to get back to some good place where we used to be, and some who feel that we need to move forward to someplace better we’ve never been before. Some who have trained for war, and some who don’t believe in war. Some who had gone to church that morning, and some who hadn’t set foot in a church in years. Love in what was said, and love in what wasn’t.

I may have been alone in taking an extra long look at everything—the whole scene, but also the details. The chairs, the floors, the views from the windows, the way the sunlight slanted in, the back yard, my old bedroom, the worn kitchen cabinets, the polished copper bottoms of pots and pans—everything I’ve assumed for years would always be there. I know now that it won’t, that it’s a matter of a few years or maybe even less. My mother, who is in amazingly good health and whose energy level far exceeds mine, has chosen to stay in her home rather than follow friends to the nearby assisted living community—for now. I’ve told my sons to make sure they take it all in, because at some point, these will be their memories. Of course I realize that one of the privileges of being young is to take such things for granted, and that I am foolish to think that I can give them the perspective that only age will bring.

When I woke up this morning, I realized that once again, I’d dreamed about my father—as if he’d made sure that he, too, was part of the gathering. He was right there with me in the house where we’d all just met, and he was showing me some notes he’d carefully written down on a piece of paper for me—telephone numbers of boys who had called for me while I was out (ironic, as I’d never gone through the phase of having my father scrutinize prospective suitors, because I’d only been thirteen when he’d died.) I remember sitting with him in the dream and showing him how I could make notes on my I-phone. Later I went for my walk and thought about the dream and our Easter gathering the day before and felt the wind and the warm sun and watched the petals swirl around me from the blossoming trees. It was such a beautiful, precious, poignant mix of everything, and it felt like there was such love in it. All of it.