Everything changes

I remember the first Good Friday I spent with my husband’s family (now my family). It was 15 years ago. It is a family tradition of theirs to make spinach pies. More specifically his dad makes them with a little help from everyone. This is the only day of the year that my father in law cooks. He makes dozens of pies. This day of pie making requires lots of shopping. Lots of prep. Loads of clean up. I remember the first year so well mainly because of the mess. My mother in law was a woman that kept her house very clean. She would vacuum at three in the morning if she got up to have a cigarette and noticed that floor had crumbs or anything on it. She was also a woman that rarely slept. I remember coming into her house and the kitchen was the first room you would walk through. There was spinach everywhere. Pots boiling over. Flour and dough covering the counters and her dining room table and the floor. A mess. I remember thinking this woman is a saint to let this go on. Since that first Good Friday my mother in law has passed away and the tradition for the last 8 years has continued on at our house.

I am also like my mother in law. I like the house to be clean and in order. I love the tradition and thoroughly enjoy the day. The thought of the aftermath gives me anxiety. Aside from the mess, and the happy chaos this day brings it also makes me a little sad. I am happy to carry on the tradition and that we have a home that can accommodate it but it is a reminder that my mother in law is not here. So much has changed over the last 15 years. For one I am not a 17 year old girl anymore. 15 years ago all I saw was the mess today I know days like these are the glue that hold things together. Families change. Almost constantly. Babies are born. People we love pass away. Friends that felt like family move. Some faces are a constant. Some come and go. Usually on a day like today we will reminisce about prior years. Today we didn’t do that. Just recently my husband’s grandmother passed away. Even more recently his sister in law. I think in light of these losses old memories were too much for today. Sometimes change is so rapid it leaves no time to adjust. No time to prepare for the lack of someone’s presence.

Two years ago Seark was just a baby and it was his first Good Friday. My best friend Melissa was here with her baby who is the same age as Seark. At that time I thought our babies would grow up together. Always know each other. Maybe even have traditions of their own. She moved to California a few months ago. We keep in touch but not like we used to. 3,000 miles and different time zones will do that to a friendship. I always miss her but today I really felt the absence of her presence. Aidan was busy playing with his friend. Seark came out of the toy room with the saddest face and said “dose duys wont pay wit me.”I couldn’t help but think about how up until Melissa moved Seark and her baby Saige were inseparable.  Although they were babies they had a closeness. A bond. Even when they had no words you could tell they shared a secret. I missed her for him and wondered how different the day would have been if they could be here. I missed them both… more than most days.

Today I was wishing I was my 17 year old self again. A time when friendship was forever. When I was blissfully unaware of the impending circle of life cycle. I watch my kids enjoy this day without pondering such things and I envy them. I look at the empty chair where Grace (my husband’s grandmother) would be sitting and I miss her. She was a pain in the ass. She complained. A lot. About everything. Half of the time it was too hot in the house and she would ask if we were trying to kill her with the heat. “You know I can’t breathe in the heat! Do you want me to die?!” You would open a window to cool it off a bit and she would complain about the draft and her arthritis and tell you how rude you were for not already getting her a blanket. She would talk sternly to the kids and make jokes that they didn’t understand and then say they never want to visit with me. She was impossible, never easy to please, not having to accommodate her anymore brings a strange sadness. An awareness that things have once again changed.

Yes things have changed since I was 17. Not all change is bad though. Just as some of the faces we love have disappeared new ones are beginning to fill up those empty spaces. Aidan, Seark, Rylan, and my nephew make this house and holiday alive with laughter and a sense of new beginnings. I look at them and it seems to all make sense.