I had planned on Easter baskets and
bunnies.
God had another plan.
Easter Sunday dawned pink, and blue,
and yellow. Glorious sunshine streamed through the
window to my right. I stretched, trying to relieve
cramped muscles, which had been restricted throughout
the long, seemingly endless night.
I gazed through foggy, smudged
plastic at the bright sunlight, just six feet away. I
parted the curtain and gazed out of the window. It was
going to be a beautiful Easter Sunday, the kind you pray
for: warm and bright with iris and daffodil-scented air.
I imagined my friends and neighbors
preparing for the day. Easter hats, bright dresses, and
new suits, bought for the special Easter services, would
soon adorn Mother and Father, Daughter and Son.
Multicolored eggs, hidden throughout sun-lit lawns,
nestled beneath bush or tree, in anticipation of the
eager searching of little girls in starched dresses, and
little boys in blue suits. Scrambling upon newly sprung
lawns in the quest of brightly colored treasures, young
voices would cry out in triumph, as one jeweled egg
after another made its way into colorfully woven, Easter
baskets. It was the kind of day I had planned for you,
on this, your first Easter.
I turned and looked down upon your
sleeping face. Such a beautiful, sweet face with its
chubby baby cheeks, downy skin and clear-cut brows. I
pressed my lips to your forehead and felt a thrill run
through my heart. No fever!
My mind traveled back to the Friday
morning before. Good Friday began just before dawn for
us. I awoke to hear a strange noise coming from your
room: a kind of barking noise, mixed with attempts at
crying. I rushed in to find you struggling for breath,
your lips outlined in blue. "Mark!" I cried, rousing
your father from a deep sleep. He stumbled in confused,
but not too muddled to take immediate action. Throwing
on a pair of sweats, he wrapped you in a quilt, and
rushed you to the deck outside, where a cold pre-dawn
breeze might bring you some relief.
The frigid air seemed to help your
breathing. Your daddy kept you there, until I could
scramble into some clothes. We then rushed you to the
emergency room, still wrapped in the quilt, the windows
of the van down, so that the cold air would continue to
help you breathe.
They told us that it was the croup,
implying that you might not survive. I remember grabbing
the intern’s tie and pulling his face down to mine:
"What do you mean IF he makes it?" I cried. Surely, this
was some kind of wicked nightmare and I would awaken
soon. You were not going to be taken from us! Not you!
Not my son!
Thus began the ordeal. You were taken
to the contagious ward and placed within a tent-enclosed
crib in which medicated mist was pumped. I crawled in
with you and held you. I could feel your little body,
burning with fever, trembling in between spasms of
breathing. I ached watching you! I was reminded of my
last moments with my mother, the grandmother you had
never known. I had watched her as she lay dying,
fighting for breath, just like you were doing
now…watched as her chest heaved with the effort to
breath. The memory terrified me! Certainly, a rib cage
would break under such effort! Surely, a small child
could not survive such suffering! I stroked your
forehead and murmured words of comfort throughout your
struggle, as I continued to hold you within the circle
of my arms. You didn’t cry. I don’t think you had the
strength. I cried for you.
Saturday dawned sunny and warm. I
remember thinking that if the day before had been this
balmy, we may not have made it to Children’s emergency
room in time, as the frosty temperatures of the morning
before, had eased the swelling in your throat, and
allowed you just enough of an airway to breathe.
You slept though most of Saturday.
The fight to live won; you lay as you had since we
arrived, within my arms, quiescent, gathering strength
for the day when you would be released from the
hospital.
***
The room began to brighten with light
from the window. I stroked your cheek and brushed your
hair from your brow. My beautiful son! How could I
survive without you, my baby?
Easter Sunday…your first Easter; I
thanked God for returning you to me. Today, there would
be no Easter egg hunts, no brimming Easter baskets.
Instead, today held life renewed and returned, and it
held rejoicing!
Easter Sunday is a day of reflection
and joy, representing the end of suffering and the
promise of salvation. I lay down beside you, still
holding you in my arms as my thoughts turned toward
another mother: one, who had watched her son suffer, had
stood beneath His cross and bled within her heart as
each drop of His blood was shed. How had she endured it?
How had she borne it?
I saw her clearly in my mind’s eye,
watching her son’s chest heave with the effort to
breathe. Knowing that the very position the soldiers had
placed Him in would cause asphyxiation. She had stood
vigil throughout her child’s struggle for breath,
watched as His lips slowly turned blue, as He fought for
oxygen. How she must have longed to hold Him, to murmur
a mother’s words of comfort. "My baby! My sweet boy!"
I felt her pain as her son was
lowered from His cross and finally placed within her
arms. Now she could stroke His bloodied head. Now she
could kiss His cooling brow and murmur those words she
had longed to murmur while He hung above her. I saw her
rocking Him, cooing to Him, her voice choking as she
perhaps attempted a broken lullaby. I saw her whispering
words of love, her heart aching with the torment she had
witnessed and with the death of her beautiful boy.
I envisioned her on the second day.
Her child lay within His tomb, His personal ordeal now
over. She must have felt comfort in this; her son was no
longer suffering. He was at peace.
I then imagined her on that first
Easter Sunday. I heard the others shouting, "Here is the
Lord! Here is the Savior! Here is the Messiah!" But, I
heard her voice exclaim with joy: "Here is my baby! Here
is my child! Here is my heart!"
What gratitude she must have felt! At
that moment in time, I could not imagine that she was
thinking of the salvation of mankind. I could only
visualize a mother, who had just the night before, cried
out in anguish to the heavens above, "I want my son
back!" weeping now in gratitude and relief at her
child’s return.
I turned onto my side and gave you a
gentle hug. My heart filled with gratitude that I had
not lost you, that you were again healthy and alive,
that you were here, within my arms, my sweet son.
Kissing your silken cheek I sent up a
prayer of thanksgiving: "Thank you for giving me my son
back," I prayed, "and tell your mother for me, please –
I’m glad she has her son back too." I closed my eyes and
at last slept.
