A Different Kind of Easter

It is 4:31pm on Easter Sunday and I am still in my pajamas.  I haven't stepped outside in two days even though these were the warmest two days we had in months.   The house is silent besides the occasional coughing I hear from upstairs as everyone else is celebrating this holy day somewhere else.  I make myself some tea in my newest thrifted English cup and munch on a days old brownie.   

                                          

The cough wakes him up and he cries for me. I go upstairs and it begins again.  

"Water!" Sips on water.  "Cough.  Cough.  Milk!  Water on THAT nightstand!  No, on THAT one!  Cough.  Water!"  Etc, etc times 5 or 10.  I feel his body getting hotter again.  He commands me to do other things and my fatigue body complies.    Today is day three of his flu, 50th hour of him attached to my hip and his sweet face in mine, and I am too tired to act differently.   Also, he is my 5th child and I am wise enough.  

                               
I scroll through my IG feed in the moments when he dozes off to sleep and I see picture perfect families together, dressed in their Easter best.  And I sign.  Today was supposed to be different. Three days ago, I was planning a party.   But as the Good Book tells us:  

                           

Forgive the hyperbolic comparison...

I was supposed to dress all nice and enjoy the service after which I were to fly home and welcome 60 of our closest relatives and with a smile on my face take plates of yummy food of their hands and set it pretty on my cherry blossom tables.  

 

And we would take pictures and we would sing worship songs and we would chat and lament

over the family that lost their young beautiful mama today...    

You see, for that 44 years old mama of eight, a different party was planned for this Easter. Her soul met the resurrected King today.   The same one she trusted and hoped would show up here on Earth and spare her of suffering.  And he showed up, but did not spare.  Today is the day she found the answer to why not? while the rest of us are left to wonder... 

Left to hope.  Left to put things in perspective (whats a flu compared to childhood cancer?) and left to trust in a bigger picture.  We are left to remember that suffering and death is part of the human experience and that it is sanctifying as much as it is suffocating...  

We are also left to love.   Love like Jesus loved.  Love like 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is engraved on our hearts and is a verb.  

                    

Today, I am reminded that different is not bad and that not as planned is not necessarily disappointing.   

And I thank God that there is life after suffering.
Amen.    

P.S.   Oh, and here are some pictures baby niece, a rainbow baby, who made it into this world a few weeks prior and breathed new life into her long awaited parents and melted the heart of all those that knew their story.  Love you, Eva 💕.