“They only come around once a year, we have only done this once.”

Individual holidays that is…and each holiday is different. Brilliant insight from our traveling son, Ryan. I have started to keep post-it-notes of his singular thoughts, they are precise, always a new perspective.  I treasure those moments with Ryan. He had checked in on his way back to eastern PA from central PA, he will be stationary for maybe a day and then off to western Canada.

My voice cracked while speaking to Ryan, I usually try to not do that, but Easter is so hard. What say you?  Easter hard?  How can it be hard, I mean it is the highest, holiest season of all Christendom, this is where eternity in heaven was made a reality for all our beloved dead…this is Justin’s favorite holiday…yeah, I know.  Let me say it again “Easter is so hard.”  Justin’s favorite time of the year. For me it is a time of conflict and regret.  Regret for not ever saying “no” to local responsibilities and going to celebrate Easter at Franciscan when he was student.  He asked us to come every year, and every year we were always committed the entire week to parish activities.  Justin understood, I know that he did, he and Ryan grew up in our parish, helped out, waited in pews, explored the choir loft in the old church…church kids through and through. But we missed it, we missed four opportunities of celebrating Easter with Justin. How often does your just turned 18 year old ask you repeatedly to come and stay with them at college?  We missed it.  Missed him playing trumpet his very first year for Vigil at FUS (beautiful story shared with us by very close friends of Justin), missed the exuberance and excitement of an entire campus entering into the Triduum. Missed it. Very few of the students left campus at Easter, preferring to stay and keep Holy Week at school.  And no, Easter is not made easy because of the truth that it bears. We believe in the resurrection, we do, but that does not take away our grief. If faith took away our grief, why do we reflect so on the Sorrows of Mary?

This is only our second Easter without Justin. Each holiday is different, each with its own traditions and rhythms.  We have only done this once and we were numb last year, numb and had filled every single moment with intense activity…because if you keep moving, perhaps you can outrun grief, if you fill every single moment with more activity, more responsibilities, you won’t feel anything. Tired of running this year. A very unplanned broken tooth followed by a very unplanned root canal during Holy Week enforced a bodily stillness, and still I felt nothing. Feeling guilty because I don’t “feel” Easter this year, not in any traditional sense, not through the rubrics of the church.  Struggling to make sense of where I did see Christ crucified though, where pain and suffering is so intense, lives crushed by death….we sat with over 20 other parents who children have died and heard their stories. That was my way of the cross, there I saw Christ bloodied, wounded, scarred….in that small room I met Simon of Cyrene who offered his hand to help, I saw Veronica with more courage than I could imagine one person to have reach out to pass tissues and wipe tears….there I experienced Holy Week.  There was true compassion in that room, there where no demographic barriers, no requirements for membership except the highest price ever asked of any parent.  There was my community, I saw the church. Not in all its shiny, starched glory, not in its neat, tidy well-organized and orchestrated worship, but the church bleeding, there I met Christ and his sorrowful mother.

We have only done this once, we have to plan our trip to Justin’s grave sometime today or tomorrow morning. Please don’t say “you know, he isn’t there.”  Well, yes he is…okay.  That beloved body is there, that mop of curls, those long sensitive fingers of a musician, what is left of the boy we love still lies there.  Stop telling parents to rejoice and be glad, let us grieve in peace our boy. We know that Justin’s soul is not trapped in that dark tomb….but our Justin still lies there….I still wish everyday that I had remembered to take a sweater for the undertaker to put on him because I don’t want him to be cold, don’t negate that to a grieving parent just because the nightmare is to great for you to imagine. We live it, breathe it every moment of every day.

I saw Christ crucified this week, but in the most unexpected places and his pain does not cease, his Good Friday continues in every brother and sister in Christ whose cross is made heavier by a world who cannot stop to wipe a tear.