“…‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.’”
John 11:25
Every year.
I have photographic evidence. My first Resurrection Sunday.
There I am, barely five months old. Cue ball head, in a baby carrier, on a lacy, tableclothed table. Next to an Easter Lily.
The camera snapped at the precise moment I yawned.
Typical.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, even as a baby.
From each Resurrection Sunday documented, photographed year after year, there is an Easter Lily in the shot. It’s there with me, surprised by various Easter baskets, candy, stuffed and chocolate bunnies.
Always the familiar white grouping of flowers in a pot.
As I got older, I soon understood this was an annual necessity.
And there were floral requirements.
The chosen, preferred Easter Lily needed to have at least five or six closed bulbs within the plant. At the most, maybe one or two could flower.
My mother insisted that she didn’t want everything to bloom, and then wilt, on that special Sunday morning.
So, counting closed bulbs became a thing.
I still count bulbs whenever I get my own Lily, years later.
Even after I went no contact with her.
My mother died just before Christmas last year.
I didn’t know it at the time. I found out a week later.
I had no awareness of her death on Christmas.
I have full awareness of her death on this Resurrection Sunday.
Resurrection. Life after death.
Mom, making her case on why she preferred this Holy Spring Day to Christmas…
“Because the real hope is that He arose FROM death. The Cross has more to celebrate from it than His Birth.”
My mother, even saying that, still Christmas- decorated like crazy, but I understand her viewpoint.
And Spring. Baby animals, flowers, green grass.
New.
Who doesn’t like new?
This Resurrection Sunday will be… new.
It’s new to me to know there are Easter Lilies on this earth.
And she isn’t.
This year will be the first year she doesn’t exist here with them.
So, I got an Easter Lily.
