Happy Easter everyone.  It's a cold one, 20 degrees when I woke this morning, we are having a cold, late spring.  When you get to be 70, you have quite a few Easters under your belt, and memories galore, going back to Falconer Street as a kid, where we dyed about two dozen eggs or more.  When there are six kids dying eggs, you have to do more than two each.  I have a picture of my friend Jackie dying eggs with us, something her family didn't do so we probably had four dozen that year.  I also remember Paul's friend Stan, dying eggs with us on Clay Hill.  He was about sixteen, but there was a big difference in age from his older brother, and his family just never thought to have him dye eggs, so it was a first for him.  He seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Then there was the Easter in Beacon, the kids were little, I had made yellow capes for the girls, and they had just little spring outfits and it snowed.  Contrast that to the year before Jer was born, when we dyed eggs outside on the picnic table wearing summer outfits. 

Ria died on St. Patty's Day, also the first day of Holy Week and her wake and funeral all seem to be tied into this occasion.  Five years later, in some ways a long time...when you see how grown up the kids have become in five years, it seems that way -five years makes a big difference.  And in other thoughts, it seems like yesterday.  Maria loved all holidays, and at Easter she went all out.  Cookies galore and for the egg hunt she would get all dolled up, long spring dress with a hat especially made for the occasion.  A la Martha Stewart, Ria would cover the hat with chicks and bunnies.  Makes me smile to think about it.