Sometimes, the NOW is a really good place to be. Enjoy what you can in your life. Let your optimism shine through rose-colored glasses at least once every day!

Last month, on Easter Sunday, I realized that our lives had changed and that our NOW was a pretty good place to be. Here are my thoughts on that day.

On Easter Sunday This Year

Not my mother’s Easter Sunday, that’s for sure! Used to be, back in the days when our family was filled with little ones, our days were filled with Easter egg decorating and hunting, Easter baskets piled high with candy (at least one See’s Candy Easter egg each) and new Easter outfits for Sunday Mass. And yes, a whole bunch of religious liturgy I won’t impose on you.

But on this Easter Sunday, our morning was just the two of us, my husband and I, enjoying a leisurely breakfast in bed – and a package of Marshmallow Peeps compliments of my sentimental spouse. Not the Easter of my youth. But a good day, worth doing.

We’ve made a half-hearted effort at sporting spring colors for our church outing – but the real focus has been on serious stuff like where to park the car and optimistic plans for how to get a seat for this oh so popular church-going day. Only Christmas rivals the excess crowd that shows up for Easter Sunday. Even with double the services, scheduled 15 minutes apart in both the church and the parish hall. But the parking lot capacity doesn’t change. And inside and sometimes even outside, it’s standing room only.

We Don’t Do Standing-Room-Only Anymore

The secret’s in the timing. We’ll be leaving at 11:30 for the 12:15 Mass. (The church is 10 minutes away.) We’ll park in the strip mall lot across the street, and walk over, and wait on a bench outside the church doors for the mass exodus of the 10:30/10:45 Masses. Once we have our seats, we’ll wait. And squish closer and closer as they fill the pews with all the new faces. My husband, still recovering from the Palm Sunday 3-people-gospel-script, is expecting the service to go long. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to the exuberance of our joyful youth choir as they sing their exhilarating Easter songs.

When we head home again we’ll make a quick stop at one of the mall shops – to pay our dues for the parking space by becoming customers. And prepare to welcome some family for a quiet and not so traditional Easter feast of steak, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach… and some homemade strawberry shortcake. Yum Yum.

Last Year at This Time

It occurred to me as we walked from the car to the church – last year at this time we wouldn’t have been up for doing even this simple trek. We do that a lot these days, remember where we were “last year at this time” because last year was a year that challenged our resilience.

You see, my husband was diagnosed with esophageal cancer (BAD, BAD, BAD) in the fall of 2007; he went through a whirlwind 10 days of tests and began a four month chemo regimen followed by an Ivor-Lewis surgery, followed by recovery and then 3 weeks of VERY powerful chemo that tanked his white blood count and put us in a hospital six hours from home. Yes both of us, me as caregiver to him, a patient in isolation – he’d already been exposed to all my germs they told me. We had naively scheduled and started a 3 day road trip that morphed into an eleven day hospital stay.

Here’s what this week looked like last year: Monday – see the radiologist for a second opinion on radiation therapy (no go, a case of cure worse than what ails you); Tuesday blood test for him, business meeting for me; Wednesday, broviac catheter installed for future infusions and blood draws because his blood vessels have been thrashed by chemo. (We would be thankful for that catheter in the hospital.) Also Wednesday, chemo #2; Thursday, CT with contrast (he’s allergic to the dye so it’s a bit more complicated than your usual CT.) Through it all, we kept our faith in our ability to bounce back from all these life-challenging adversities – we were fighting a good fight against a BAD cancer. And we trusted that our optimistic attitude made us better warriors.

The next week, we got the good news that our good friend “NED” – “no evidence of disease” – was still in attendance; my husband completed chemo #3 and we headed off on vacation.

So you see, we’re very glad to be here in this year! We count our blessings everyday and on special occasions such as Easter, “remember when” and add those praises to our gratitude.

Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Yay for today.

What can you celebrate about your NOW?