Just a little thought......

The rain came down today. The sky opened up and the water beat down onto the long not yet mowed spring green grass with its yellow spiky dandelions spreading out wild. It was a gray day. Wet and cold. Yet inside our home the fire was warm. The last bit of our winter wood burned in the fireplace. My high back chair was comfy soft, my old worn, woolen blanket wrapped around my legs. Maggie lying at my feet, as Rainer sat in our leather Morris rocking chair with Hildy curled up on his lap he swayed gently back and forth. The lights are soft, outside it’s dark. The day almost over.

My day has been filled with the ringing of bells, Alleluias, egg hunts, pretty dresses, and smiles. Friends gathered together in old rituals comforting both young and old as girls in pink bunny ears sat with friends. Ringing telephones with tones of love filled my day, words of happiness back and forth between children and parents.

And I remember back to when I was a young, old mother of a spirited 15 month, toe headed boy, living in the city. I have memories of walking the aisles of an Old Italian grocery store, my young son squirming in the shopping cart. I gathered spices, young vegetables; meats wrapped from the butcher, warm breads fresh from the oven handed over the counter top from the baker for our holiday feast. The overwhelmed mother putting boxes back on the shelves as her D-Monster waving his little hands had grabbed every little thing his fingers could reach. Old shuffling grandmothers with large purses and baskets perused the aisles, gathering foods for their own holiday feasts. Back and forth, we traveled down the aisles amongst a city of strangers. A little boy, his mother trying to take the carrots from his fist, leaned out of his cart and said to wise, sage old neighborhood women filling their baskets with ripened red tomatoes, “Bona Pasqua” The Sicilian women, startled, looked up from their basil and tomatoes, and stood in silence for a moment. The women’s wrinkled faces broke open with joy and burst into a rushing stream of Italian as they surrounded and fawned over my fair haired boy. I remember the bright smiles and language barriers of the day, as I watched a little boy making friends.

And to all I say…..Bona Pasqua.