~ from Jill


One of the things you realize after moving to another coast, is how much you miss your extended family at holidays. In the car on Friday my eight-year old asked me if we could fly back to California, “just for Easter.”

No one does Easter Sunday better than my mother in law, with plates of homemade specialties, (rainbow jello & bunny sweet rolls), and a traditional ham dinner.

She always held an egg hunt, and each of us would have to find the egg with our name on it. I used to dread finding mine, they were hidden so well -- I think once no one found a certain egg for days.

A tall angel food cake with shredded coconut “grass”, and jelly-bean eggs would be on her kitchen counter, my husband said that as a boy, he couldn’t wait to see that cake appear, he looked for it as soon as they came home from church.

We can’t be with his family tomorrow, or any of our loved ones in California, but still, we will wake up in the morning, put on our best clothes, and go to church. When we come home I’ll write our names on plastic eggs with permanent marker, just like my mother in law would, and stuff them with treats. Then we’ll hide them in our backyard, somewhere in the palm trees or beside the fallen coconuts.

We will talk about what Easter means to our family, about hope and resurrection, and be grateful for families who love us, and celebrate as well.