Monday Musings On a Good Friday

Easter weekend has arrived at last...or "again" depending on your perspective and attitude about it.

For me, it's a bittersweet time of year. Having grown up "in the church" if you will--daughter of a minister whose family's weekend in a small town revolved around what time you got up and ready for Sunday service, during which you were likely pondering that delicious Sunday lunch--Easter weekend was Kind of a Big Deal.

It was full-frontal baskets from The Bunny stuffed with candy and many times small gifts, painted eggs to find around the yard or house, pretty corsages for the women to wear, a fancier than usual post-service lunch after the entire congregation gamely gave it their all for Handel's Hallelujah chorus at the end of an inspiring "He Is Risen" (now quit your bitching and do something positive) style message.

I'll admit I've been lax about these various practices (including the "going to church on Sunday" one that many times I regret for various reasons). Living overseas for so many years with toddlers and newborns wasn't really conducive to the egg-hunt, prezzies in a basket tradition although I did try, up to an including the year I literally forgot to set out the baskets I had purchased in England after drinking way too much the night before, for reasons that are better left to The Imminent Liz Memoir (tentative title: "Headache Pay").

But I will always and forever have fond memories of Sundays spent in the pews, smelling the corsage, anticipating the ham and homemade rolls (with a Cadbury Egg chaser) and, above all for me, the glorious music I associate with my time as a church-goer. Unfortunately, an Easter weekend was also the final time I heard my father's voice--on the phone, breathy, and telling me he was "fine" but he wanted to talk to me as I was trying to navigate the kids around a spring break trip to Sanibel Island.

No, I was not overly close to my father. If anything we spent plenty of years estranged thanks to choices he made regarding his marriage to my mother and his tendency to judge first and screw you if you disagreed with him (ok, stop already I know I get it from him). 

But every year about this time I recall that phone call. I can practically taste my impatience with him, with his need to "interrupt" my long-needed vacation (such as it was with 3 kids along) but also with the absolute and final moment of panic I felt when I hung up.

I never spoke to him again. There was an infection in the artificial valve of his heart that went too long misdiagnosed as something else. I saw him, hooked up to a ventilator that--if you have never seen someone hooked up to a ventilator in REAL life was the most awful thing ever and that will never fade no matter how many years insert themselves between that day and this one. But he never woke to judge me, or to sing to me, or to listen to me ever again.

Whether you realize it or not (and if you are a Liz fan you have heard this so many times it's getting a little broken-record-ish) I an rounding the corner on the first anniversary of the most personally devastating event of my almost 50 years on this rock. When I woke up this morning, Good Friday--the day all seemed lost thousands of years ago in a Really Great Story, or in the history of a major religion, however you regard it--the first thing I thought about was my dad. The keen regret I still experience at not listening to him on the phone all those years ago, at not packing up my kids and hightailing it to Lexington the moment after I hung up, never really lessens.

The second thing was the usual "this time last year" thing that my mind tends to do to me lately, reminding me of various missteps, mistakes and hopefully a few decent decisions I've made the the twelve intervening months between that day and this. 

I'm blessed to still have my mom with me (and likely reading this now). She retired and get herself up to Michigan several years ago, has made a whole passel of new friends (as she does) and has been invaluable as I work my way through various career changes and choices, providing rides for pre-driving kids, meals that are some of the only times we are all around the table together as a group and a general sounding board (and drinking buddy).

But this time of year never fails to put me in mind of the parent I lost, of the large voice the world lost, and how much I'm reminded to value the time you're given with those you love.

Agent Update : 2 fresh rejections but that manuscript is getting a do-over so I'll stop submitting it and will no longer be subjecting you to this depressing little line of the weekly Liz Musings.

WIP Status : Editing this week, Hat Trick, book 4 of the Black Jack Gentlemen, my fictional Detroit soccer series. Diving into FAMILY LOVE, book 4 of The Love Brothers, a series that is really picking up steam amongst readers eager for a unique plot and set of characters. I am really really really super duper excited about this book as it will be a "novel within a novel" project--something I've never tried.

COACH LOVE IS STILL FREE THROUGH SATURDAY on Amazon! Snag it, read it, and get hooked.

Spring Break Plans : headed out for a college visit, then it's full on "get that damn house ready to move into and stop f*cking around with it!"

Thanks for bearing with me during my annual Easter Weekend Guilt Trip. But as much of a downer as all that is, I'm still enough of a "church going child" to feel uplifted by the thought of "He is Risen" (now get off your ass and do something to make Him proud!).


cheers
Liz


p.s. Dear Izzo,