A Different Kind of Easter

Well, of course Easter will be different this year, with almost the entire world grappling with Covid-19 and most of us under quarantine. It’s hard to know where to begin when this pandemic is impacting almost every aspect of our lives. But I am one of the lucky ones. I may have spent the last six weeks, pretty much 24-7, at home with my husband but we, as well as our family, have remained safe and healthy.

For the first time in my life, I won’t be spending Easter with any extended family and I won’t be stepping foot inside of my church. From when we learned early on during the quarantine that Holy Week services in church would not be open to the public, I could barely get my head around it. Fortunately, my parish, Sacred Hearts-St. Stephen, has been live-streaming Masses daily as well as weekly rosary recitations and the Lenten Stations of the Cross. Last night I watched the Holy Thursday Mass from my laptop; that, to me, is the most moving and solemn Mass of the year. It calls to mind the Last Supper and concludes with a candle-lit vigil. There was no washing of the feet this year and I sadly remembered two beautiful sisters praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament a couple of years ago. One is now mourning the loss of the other due to Covid-19. It has been a heartbreaking Holy Week for many including our own parish family.

Today we had a live-stream Good Friday service and a virtual procession. The SHSS Good Friday procession has been held annually for over 70 years, and has only been moved inside due to weather now and then. The procession brings back hundreds of people who have moved away and so we are reunited with old friends and neighbors each year. Alas, this year we will be doing everything remotely in front of our screens. We will all be doing something together but we won’t actually be together.

I hope this doesn’t sound like a lament. I am certainly lamenting the loss of life and the suffering; the lack of adequate PPE, ventilators and testing; the isolation of many (especially the elderly); the staggering loss of jobs and shuttering of businesses; the racist attacks on Asians and that Chinatown is an absolute ghost town; the high school and college seniors who are missing out on graduations and proms; the overall scariness of the situation; the fact that I am almost too nervous to sit outside and look at the beautiful Carroll Gardens springtime blooms and budding trees; that I can't see a thing with my mask on because my glasses get fogged up; and how I would love to give my older son a big hug and kiss. But most of all, I am really so grateful.

I am grateful that my family and friends seem to be doing okay, that we have comfortable homes and food in those homes, that the grocery stores workers and delivery people are my new heroes, and that I have a good working phone so I can hear people’s voices everyday. I am also grateful for my amazing neighbor Elvira who leaves me things like warm spaghetti pie and a freshly baked pizza chena on the wall between our yards. I am grateful for my 96-year old Uncle Moe who called me from Colorado to tell me that the Pope was live on Facebook this morning. I am grateful for all the doctors, nurses and first responders and for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his familiar Brooklyn accent. I am grateful for my friend Denise who sends me the funniest jokes and memes everyday, some of which she gets from her sister who is a nun (and my former teacher) living in Rome. I am grateful for my friends Laureen and Mark driving all the way from Queens to drop off an Easter treat on my doorstep. I am grateful for my Uncle Louis’ almost daily phone calls and recipes. I am grateful for Netflix. I am grateful for my Aunt Marion in Virginia who wrote out a coronavirus novena in her beautiful handwriting and messengered it to me (I’m on my third go round of that novena). I am grateful for my high school friend Phyllis who is sewing me a batch of masks that she made herself. I am grateful for the sweet waiter, a Turkish immigrant, from the deli near my mother-in-law who just texted us to see how we are. I am grateful to be the surprise bedtime story reader on Facetime with my two cutie-pie neighbors. I am grateful for all my friends and relatives for reaching out. I am grateful that we had a good stock of toilet paper and dried pasta to start out with.

And so Easter will be different. But I will still be attending all the religious services, albeit on my computer, listening to the comforting voice and relevant messages of Msgr. Massie. And I will still be making pizza rustica but maybe less this year. If one bread store isn’t making Easter bread, fortunately the other one is. So what if it’s not everybody’s favorite (I like it just fine). And since I couldn’t order my usual Easter candy from See’s, we'll just have to make do with some Cadbury bars and the single package of Peeps I picked up weeks ago. And if I can’t get Easter egg coloring, maybe the eggs will just be their natural color. It will be okay. If we won’t be having my brother’s cheesecake or my sister’s bunny cake, we'll look forward to those cakes next year. And I know we’ll be having some kind of roast even if I just discovered that a roast I thought I ordered for delivery today was actually scheduled for delivery for Friday, May 8th!

My husband, my younger son and I will sit down to a nice Easter dinner and we will hopefully be able to “Zoom” with the rest of the family. We have started saying grace regularly because all of sudden, we realize how thankful we really are, not just on holidays but pretty much everyday. There’s always some good that comes out of the worst of times and one of those good things is that we have adequate time for reflection and for appreciation of what’s really important.

I’ll end with this from my dear friend Sara who is celebrating a quieter Passover this week. She texted this beautiful message to me: “This year’s celebration will be different but the love we have in our hearts and the faith we have in our traditions will remain and be felt by our families and friends.” I wish you all a Happy and Blessed Easter, a Happy and Blessed Passover but most of all I wish that you and yours will stay safe and healthy until we can all be together again.