In last week’s column, I quoted Dr. Tony Campolo’s famous Good Friday presentation, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a-coming.” As Campolo understands, for the faithful, the ritual sorrow of Holy Week ends in the Sunday dawn of resurrection. Memories of past sunrise services will have to suffice this year, although a few may gather in the quiet cemetery or at the ocean’s shore, six feet apart but still proclaiming: “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” Alleluia. Or, as the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sings so distinctively: “No matter what comes my way, I’ll lift my voice and say Hallelujah anyhow.” Take that, Corona-Virus.
Writing in “At the Corner of Mundane and Grace,” Chris Fabray explains the concept of living backwards. He suggests we live from the perspective of life in the rocking chair at age seventy-five, determining the best thing to do right now, “that will make me happiest when I’m old and gray and have nothing left but my gums and my memories.”
Here are two ‘rocking chair’ memories from Easter past. First, a community memory of an Easter egg hunt at Brookside, quoted from the Ashland Times-Gazette mid-1930s. “The feature of the morning was the bunny contest. After trying in vain to have the children form in a large circle, the judges had them form a straight line at the east side of the park. As soon as the line was formed, the live rabbit was turned loose several hundred feet from the children. At the starting signal, the rabbit was supposed to run, but he was too frightened. The children did not hesitate. They immediately started to chase the rabbit. The bunny was caught by Marshall Akerman.” I wonder if anyone called the SPCA?
Fast forward to the early 60s, as a young couple watched their two children search excitedly for their Easter baskets, filled with colored eggs for upper-upper contests and Platter’s chocolates molded into rabbits and chicks. A gorgeous Sunday, they loaded the kids into the Buick and drove to the Buffalo zoo, along with thousands of other families suffering from spring fever. The daughter refused to leave the prized basket at home, and by the time the family returned to the car, the rabbits and chicks were a brown puddle.
Ah, the gift of Easter memory. The clove-laden ham. Aunt Florence’s sky-high chiffon cake generously garnished with coconut. Frilly dresses and little boy suits with bow ties and suspenders. Real pastel Easter bonnets with ribbons and lace, not the navy blue Salvation Army bonnet I later wore. Singing “Up from the Grave He Arose” with snowflakes falling on our shoulders. Worshipping with the saints, shoulder to shoulder. Gathering around the heavily laden table for Easter dinner with the extended family.
And now, 2020. The rabbits, both flesh and chocolate, are safe for this year. The pews will be empty, as we huddle around computer screens in our bathrobes, checking in with our home congregations while guiltily surfing the church-web to check out our Methodist, Presbyterian, and AME friends in these Corona-laden days. We’ll eat ham, but there’ll be no Malczewski Butter Lambs here, a tradition on so many Buffalo tables, and too many chairs will be empty at our table – and yours. But if we’ve planned ahead (how’s that going?), we’ve got chocolate from Grandpa’s or Ashley’s Candy and Nut Shoppe, if it hasn’t disappeared. Where is that bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs?
Martin Amis asks: “Has it ever happened to you . . . ? The color of the day suddenly changes to shadow. And you know you’re going to remember that moment for the rest of your life.” Will new memories form as Pope Francis proclaims the good news of the resurrection to a deserted St. Peter’s Square, or as we teach our grandchildren to play upper-upper over FaceTime? Listening to tenor Andrea Bocelli singing from Milan’s Duomo cathedral, or pumping up the volume on Second Chapter of Acts’ “Easter Song”? Backyard egg hunts, socially-distanced Easter parades in the neighborhood, a walk in the garden, a raucous dinner table conversation by Zoom: all stand ready to become the precious memories of Easter 2020. Activate those neurons. Remember. Alleluia!
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