Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. As a child I think my love had more to do with the end of the forty-day absence of chocolate and candy from my life. It meant Easter baskets filled with Peeps, Robin Eggs, jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.

I even enjoyed the pageantry of the day – putting on my new patent leather shoes and freshly ironed Easter dress. Yes, I admit to enjoying wearing a dress, which is harder to believe than the fact that Jesus was crucified and rose after three days. There was something magical and special about Easter that even as a child I recognized. Whereas the importance of the birth of Christ may have been lost on me, for some inexplicable reason the joy and sanctity of Easter Mass resonated.

As the years passed, however, the passion for the holiday has dimmed. It is not so much that I dislike Easter, but the joyousness of the holiday is more bittersweet in recent years.

Unlike Christmas, Easter was never celebrated in a traditional fashion. One year we spent Easter in Florida with my cousin in a rental home that was anything but traditional. The home must have been owned by a hunter. It did not take a genius to deduce that from the candlesticks that were made from deer legs, the multiple deer and antelope heads that adorned the walls in the living room and the rugs that seemed to represent almost every animal on Noah’s Ark.

It was a great holiday. A week at the beach and a basket of candy? What child would not like that. Then there was the first Easter spent in London. Tom stayed in the States, so my mom and I and a friend from Marymount trotted off to Easter Mass. We were amazed to find an open parking spot near Sloan Square and proceeded to walk the two blocks to St. Mary’s Church, which was the same church my parents attended when they lived there in the 1970s.

We were a bit confused as we approached to see parishioners pouring out of the church. That was until it dawned on us, almost simultaneously, that it was daylight savings and we were an hour late.

There was no continuity to Easter. At least not the kind that a family fosters. Like years past, I shall attend Sunday Mass, get the paper and go for a run. And I shall spend much of Mass trying to focus on the meaning of the Gospel and the Resurrection. But I likely will be chasing rabbits.

Little boys in their little suits and little girls wearing the same new dresses that I wore many years ago. Young parents with their young children establishing family traditions that, God willing, they will enjoy year after year. I should not be envious, but I confess to being so. I cannot recall going to Easter Mass as a family and I cannot envision ever doing so with my own family.

I know the real meaning of Easter is to be found in the words spoken, the words heralding that He is Risen. And, like years past, I shall concentrate my mind on that meaning when I go out on a run. And rather than chasing rabbits, I will chase the dream that next Easter will be different.