waiting for the resurrection

Yesterday was Easter. I went home to visit my parents. My mom had some organizational tasks for me to complete. I was already in a fowl mood when I got home. It didn’t help that nobody knows where my sister’s last journal went. Nor that my mother always tells me when we talk about the journal that she wishes we would throw it away because of certain things written there-in.

She wrote about the million and one men who were constantly pursuing her. She was beautiful. She had perfect, delicate, facial features and a gentle humble heart. Her personality was much softer than mine but she was feisty and fiery too. She wrote about how it troubled her deeply that old men pursued her and couples would have arguments that somehow rested blamed on her. She wrote about her men problems. The rest of us sisters no longer talk about the men problems.

Lots of things are different now.

My younger sisters didn’t come home. We used to believe that Jesus died, so others could live—now some of us have other constructed variations of that. We don’t read the stories of the martyrs. My sister used to be alive. We, my sister and I, used to talk about what it means to live a passionate faith-filled integritous life. Now her silence speaks from the grave. We put her clothes on the pile for the garage sale or in the throw-away pile. We sat like docile lambs in a new church who’s martyrs wear fatigues, apparently.

I didn’t stay at church to hear more about the new martyrs. I ran, then walked home, in my flowery spring dress and sandals. It was about 8 miles. It was just beginning to rain, then it stopped. The wind was gusty. Two wolf-like dogs came out to chase me and bark at me. I stared them down. A burly bare-chested man appeared at the door of the house to yell at them. Really, the dogs were more afraid. I mourned. I cried. I screamed into the wind.

Easter is about death and resurrection. I’m still waiting for the resurrection. Easter is not over for me yet.