Easter was my next favorite holiday. Like Christmas, it was all about the kids. Easter baskets. Colored eggs. Easter outfits. Egg hunts. Church. Okay..so maybe Church should have been head of the list. Whether we were in Ypsilanti or Indiana, we always went to Church on Easter Sunday...and the Church always had an Easter egg hunt after services.
Most Easters we went to Mom and Dad's, but there were a few years we stayed home. When we stayed home, we went to Church with Granny...which we did several times through the year, but not often enough. Every time I went to Church, I left there with a glow inside and a promise to myself to go more often. But I let life get in the way and was lucky to go every six weeks and then only after much coercion from Granny.
Tammy and Buddy always got new clothes for Easter...dress, shoes, socks and hat for Tammy...Buddy got dress pants, shirt and shoes. Both got an Easter basket from the dime store fillled with penny candy and a toy.
Easter and the start of school was the only time I bought them new clothes and shoes...the rest of their clothes came from Goodwill. Garage sales were not common back then. At Easter they got dress shoes...for Church. When school started, they got sturdy winter shoes. I can't remember them ever having more than two pairs of shoes.
When we stayed home for Easter, like at Christmas, we went to Aunt Susie's for dinner, along with maybe 30 other family members. We always had another egg hunt in their yard.
When we went to Mom and Dad's, we'd drive down on Friday night, again with Granny and Aunt Dora in the car. Sunday, Mom would get us up early to go to sunrise services at 6. After sunrise service, the Church women cooked a big southern breakfast...bacon, sausage, eggs, gravy, biscuits. After that much heavy food, I...along with perhaps 80 percent of the congregation...slept through the main service. After the egg hunt, we went back to the house where Mom cooked a big dinner and we had another egg hunt for all the kids. Then by five, we were on the road for home again.
The Fourth of July was another big holiday. Either I went to Indiana or Mom and Dad came to Ypsilanti. Whichever place, we had a big picnic at the lake with all the family living in the area. I liked it best when Mom and Dad and my brothers and sisters came to Ypsi. By the time we all gathered at the lake, there would be at least 50 of us and the adults had as much fun together as the kids did.
One year I remember a particular incident. My three-year-old Buddy came out of the water up to where I was sitting with Mom and Granny and a few aunts. Buddy said he needed to go to the bathroom. Granny said, "just pee in the water, everybody else does!" So, Buddy ran back down to the lake and pulled his swim trunks down...and stood there and peed in the water! I thought I would die of embarrassment. But everybody else thought it was hilarious...and became one of those tales told at every family gathering for years.
From the time Tammy and Buddy were two and three years old, July Fourth was the day they went to stay with Mom and Dad for six weeks...until I went to get them in time to have them home for Buddy's birthday on August 14th. It was easier, in some ways, for Mom and Dad to take them than for me to leave them in Indiana. If I had to leave them, the trip home was very sad and I'm not altogether sure it was safe for me to drive while crying. When Mom and Dad took them, I was still sad, but being with Avanelle and Phyllis kept me from dwelling on it until I went home alone.
Labor Day was another big family holiday, either in Indiana or Michigan, with Mom and Dad going to Ypsilanti or me going to Indiana. Another family picnic at the lake. The end of summer.
Actually, the way it worked was if Mom and Dad came up for the Fourth, we went there for Labor Day and vice versa. If we went to Indiana, I didn't go alone...or with just Granny and Aunt Dora. Often my car would be filled with ten, or more, people. Me, Granny and Aunt Susie in the front seat. Tammy, Buddy, Gladys, Altie, Doris, Kay...sometimes Phyllis and Suetta..in the back seat. Oh...Aunt Dora never went with us then. That was the holiday she spent with her son every year...that and sometimes Thanksgiving.
As you can tell by all this, I was big on family and tried to teach my kids that family was the most important thing in life. Mom and Dad lived 200 miles away, but I never let more than a month or six weeks go by without going to see them...unless they had made a trip up to Ypsilanti, which they did two or three times a year as long as Granny was living.
I think my kids have all stayed true to this. I know my sons children are close with and see their maternal family often. Tammy and her kids are close to me and I thank God for them every day. But my boys live a hundred miles away and I don't see them and their kids often. I guess that's just life. Granny used to say "A son is your son until he takes a wife...but a daughter is your daughter all her life."
There's a lot of truth in that. I know every mother with only one daughter wishes she had more daughters...and I'm sure the daughters wish that too so they could have someone else to share the burden of older parents with. I do take delight in knowing my grandkids are happily close to their mother's families even though it hurts that I'm not the one...and I admit to a little guilty jealousy.
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