Easter Schmeaster

Best moment of Easter weekend: My dad, who is now under hospice care, saying he wants to put his boat in the water and telling me he wants to come see my new office.

And the moment I ran back into his room after saying goodbye and finally choked out the words I've been wanting to say. I told him that I know he wants to go and is tired of living this crummy existence in a body that is failing him. I told him that I want him to be able to go too, but I am going to miss him so much that I also don't want him to go. Bad writing mirrors bad talking that I do when I turn into that little girl who can't bear this losing her daddy. I also told him that when he goes, I am going to talk to him every day and that I want him to try to talk back if he can. He said he would and he let me hug him and get his neck all wet with my tears.

Most pathetic moment: Sitting in the basement playroom wrestling with those damn plastic eggs (hard to open AND hard to close), which still had last year's candy in them, because I could not see throwing them out (think of all those plastic eggs dotting landfills everywhere). I'm prying out these strange, DNA clumps of stuck-together jelly beans and refilling the eggs with chocolate kisses, sweet tart bunnies, and new, "speckled egg" jelly beans. All the time trying very hard not to eat anything because D and I are one week into a strict, no-sugar initiative. So I managed to fill 19 eggs and make my son a basket, which I hid in the downstairs bathtub.

There's so much other stuff. D and I left our three boys with a babysitter Saturday night. The intention was for us to have drinks with my parents, partly so D could get to know my dad a little -- they haven't had much time together. Instead, my dad took a turn for the worse and I spent a lot of the evening in his room helping him while D was out in the living room with my mom and other family members who came to town. I was pretty shook up, I have to say. Then we got back to D's house and all three boys were still awake at 10:30pm (plan was for me to carry sleeping boy to my car so he could wake up at home on Easter morning). So we went home and I put him to bed around 11pm and got to work being the bunny. It's getting a little sad being the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, and Santa all by myself each year. I am just not cut out to be single, I confess. (Sorry, mom, I'm still a good feminist.)

I went to bed around 1am and heard the first stirrings from the little man at 5:40am. "Mom! Time to find the eggs!" He loved it. Though as I was putting him to bed the night before, he outed me. "You're the Easter bunny, aren't you?" I said no. Dammit, I wanted one more year of believing.

So there's lots more. D's older son whacking mine with a bat. Sad, strange, awkward Easter lunch. A good handful of excellent moments, too -- don't get me wrong. My son and D's younger dancing like madmen in the Ben & Jerry's. D playing his guitar and singing me love songs totally out of tune. (D and me and the glue that binds us....)

I got to see my best, oldest friend this weekend for a tiny blip of Saturday. It was way too short, but it gave me a little shot of strength, I think. Man, I wish she lived closer. My son thinks her kids are his cousins.

Blog time over.