Already But Not Yet

It's 1:35 on Easter Sunday
and I am sitting on the front steps,
waiting.
Den and I are all ready for Easter
but Paul's family
and the Toms
and Shelby and her sister and friends
are not yet here.

The pysanky eggs
from childhoods past are on display.
Den has hidden the eggs for the girls' egg hunt.

The table is set with Grandma Maud's silver
and decorated with daffodils,
rabbits,
frog candlesticks,
Grandma's singing children,
and "Alleluia" written in Scrabble tiles.

I think of Maud every Easter
when I decorate the table,
when I serve sweet potatoes and beets,
when I sing a loud alto in church.
I am not the woman she was, however.
She would have ironed the tablecloth,
polished the silver,
waited for the rolls to rise before she baked them,
made homemade stuffing
and gravy from scratch.
She would have dug dandelion greens
to serve with hot bacon dressing.
She would have stuffed the celery
with three kinds of cheese.
I am more like Maud's older sister, Thelma.
Thelma served culinary disasters
and said, "That's the way I wanted it."
Thelma would have understood my hard-as-a-bullet rolls
and why I decided to leave the celery unstuffed
and unserved.
I don't call it lazy.
I call it enjoying the day.

For years,
Den and his dad went to sunrise services together
so Den misses Walt on Easter Sundays.
This morning
for the first time
we visited Mount Joy Methodist
because Walt is buried there
with four generations of Shaffners.
As we sang "He Lives"
we could look out the left side windows
and see the rising sun hitting the hillside
and we could look out the right side windows
and see Den's dad's gravestone
...and our own.
We may meet the Lord in the air at that very spot.
Death has been defeated!
Alleluia!

Now it is 10:30.
The third load is in the dishwasher.
It has been a great day
full of family
and old and new friends
and no one needed a bandaid.
We hunted for eggs
and ate outside
(new dish: black olives stuffed with m&ms)

then ate inside
(new dish: Paula Deen's pineapple cheddar casserole)
then played outside in the warm sunshine.
The girls rode Anna's razor tricycle,
then washed the driveway
and my car
while the grownups rode Anna's razor tricycle.

While some people took a walk
Anna wanted to have another egg hunt
and she volunteered to hide the eggs.
I refilled each 
with the traditional one m&m
and gave them to her.
Several minutes later
I accompanied two year old Lily Toms
on her search for eggs
and noticed that quite a few were now empty.
"Anna," I said,
"Why are some of the eggs empty?"
She got a little chocolaty grin on her face
and said,
"I wanted to remind Lily about the empty tomb.
It IS Easter, you know...."

Yes, it is.
We live in the "already, but not yet."
Death has already been defeated
and so we celebrate Easter,
but we have not yet experienced the final celebration.
We had better be prepared to be unprepared.