Is it just me, or did Easter come really early this year?
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It's not like I'm still putting '2003' on my checks — I stopped doing that over a month ago — but I swear I'm sometimes still wondering, "What lies ahead in the new year?" — as if a quarter of it hasn't already passed me by. Every month gone is a month less time in which 2004 can become the Best Year Ever, dammit. What is everyone waiting for?
A sweet and surprisingly spiritual holiday was this Easter. "Easters," perhaps I should say, as we had two of them.
Saturday was Grandma's Easter in Mililani. We drove up to mom's, and Katie immediately fired up the egg coloring factory. Though Jen and I made a contribution, Katie was responsible for most of the two dozen decorated eggs that were produced that day.
Zac was mostly interested in tasting the egg dye, but as tempting as the thought of a fluorescent green son was, I kept him busy with a pair of bunny ears.
We spent much of the afternoon outside, with Katie playing with our neighbor's four-year-old son Nathan (and Zac following them around as best he could). They hid and found a basket's worth of plastic eggs in the long driveway of my mom's townhouse. By the end of festivities, however, only half a basket was left. I imagine we'll be finding those eggs for the next several months.
Easter being a spring holiday of rebirth, perhaps it was fitting that my mom's place was also the home of a new litter of kittens.
It was only ten or so months ago that an orange kitten suddenly appeared on my mom's kitchen patio. It became a frequent visitor, but never really settled down, and we suspected it had a "better family" to mooch off of elsewhere in Mililani. But the feline apparently got around in more ways than one, and she suddenly decided my mom's place would be a great place to raise a family. My mom woke up Wednesday morning to a chorus of tiny mews... five impossibly small kittens in a pile, under a shredded blue tarp in the back yard.
The mommy cat is still pretty young, and by all appearances, she's not quite comfortable with her new responsibilities. When we'd come out to bring food or water (or take pictures), she'd take off rather than defending her brood. And despite having a comfy box with a soft blanket nearby, she seems content to leave her kittens on cold concrete.
Honestly, I don't think all five are going to make it, and with a seemingly wild mother, my mom's not willing to risk messing with them too much and risk outright abandonment. But Katie's already excited at the prospect of more cats... even if her grandma isn't.
Sunday was, of course, Easter Sunday, and that meant Easter Mass at Sacred Heart.
It was standing room only, but just our luck, the usher — who's a big fan of Katie's — nabbed us and placed us in the front row. Perhaps because of the proximity to all the action, Zac didn't squirm and shriek as much as he usually does. And Katie was almost starstruck by all the activity unfolding before her.
Father Marc Alexander was in rare form, too. In all the pomp and circumstance, he almost seemed unable to resist slipping in a little humor. He cracked jokes, he pulled plastic easter eggs out of his smock, he hammed it up for all the kids in the pews. And the kids loved it. Katie included. In fact, she called out answers to half of his questions, and he ended up giving her one of his prop eggs as a prize.
"I promise these kids aren't planted," he said at one point. "Looks like we have a few future theologians here."
The reason for the high concentration of small people at Mass turned out to be the easter egg hunt that followed in the courtyard. With easily a hundred kids in attendance and only a small patch of grass, though, the church ended up putting on more of an "easter egg pickup." I'd wager there were only a handful of eggs that were actually hidden, the rest just scattered in plain view on the grass and sidewalks.
After church, we treated ourselves to a movie: Disney's "Home on the Range," featuring the voice talents of Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Steve Buscemi, among others. It wasn't a great Disney film by any measure — on "silly fun" par with, say, "Hercules" — but Katie liked it, Zac almost watched it, and Jen and I both picked a favorite scene or two. (Stay tuned for a full review.)
Leaving the theater, Katie's finger had an unfortunate run-in with a car window. The less said the better, perhaps, but it was my fault. I was probably still off balance after spotting Esther teaching ballet at the Ward complex moments earlier.
Nerves soothed and bandage applied, it was soon time to begin Grandpa's Easter. We drove out to Aina Haina to join dad, Gayle, and much of the family for one of their famous potluck parties. There was a giant ham, trays of sushi, some crab-cucumber namasu, Chinese chicken cake noodle (which Zac just wolfed down in messy fistfulls), and of course Chad and Romy brought tubs of fresh poke from their Chinatown market. Desserts were plentiful as well, including a decadent blueberry cheesecake.
Katie tried to gain sympathy with the story of her finger injury, but another youngster there trumped her with the tale of a recent dog attack. Zac, meanwhile, stole the show, stomping around like he owned the place, and flirting with every woman there... especially Gayle's mother.
The party was the first time many of Gayle's relatives had heard about our third child due in August. Turns out I still feel a little jolt of surprise whenever Jen says the words.
Eathan was there, and he'd brought his three roommates, two of whom were Japanese students that had just moved in that day. Being new to the neighborhood, it was decided that they should experience first-hand the tradition of Easter egg coloring. So, with Katie all too happy to supervise, a batch of eggs and cups of dye were brought out and the afternoon closed with some simple arts and crafts.
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As I mentioned, though, there was a spiritual side to Easter this year that I wasn't expecting.
The eye opener was a brief exchange I had with Katie in the car last week. She announced that Sunday was Easter, and I asked her why it was so special, expecting to hear something about bunnies or candy. Instead she said, "Jesus died on the cross, but on Sunday he came back to life!"
I was honestly speechless.
It's a parent's nature, I guess, to turn every little thing into a major milestone, a life-changing epiphany, a big deal. But I really felt that instant, which unfolded at the corner of Beretania and Piikoi streets, was significant. As simple as Katie's understanding of Christian theology might still be, the fact of the matter was it was there, inside her head. In short, her model of the universe now differed from mine.
Jen and I wrestled long and hard over the question of our family's general spiritual direction. She's Catholic, I'm essentially an atheist, so as soon as kids entered the picture, we knew not to put off the question of what path we'd put before them... at least until they were ready to choose their own.
I remember some of the awkwardness I felt as we prepared for Katie's baptism. And how, despite myself, I would still get a little freaked out about the whole thing. Yet, I also realized that Katie enjoyed going to church, although at the time I was probably relieved that it was mostly because of the singing. But truly, it's one thing to ponder these things on a conceptual, "parenting philosophy" level, and another thing entirely for your daughter to ask you about Jesus Christ.
"That's right," I finally said. "So we're going to church and we're going to celebrate that."
The next thing I knew, Jen and I were explaining matter of factly the basics of Jesus' death — more the meaning than the gory details — and resurrection. Obviously, I let Jen do most of the talking, but even while I was partially stunned I managed to make a few supportive comments here and there. "Some people were scared of Jesus..." I started to say at one point and stopped. I couldn't believe what was coming out of my mouth.
I guess I wasn't ready for that transition from theory to practice. And now the new question is, when does my "opting out" of the whole Catholic thing have to be explained? Do we just wait until she asks why I don't ever go up for communion, and only sometimes bow my head or do the "sign of the cross"? Or do we ease into it early and slowly, alongside her Catholic indoctrination? Just how big of a shock would it be for a child still learning about one true way to know that there are, in fact, other ways?
I can see it now. She'll come home from Sunday School convinced her daddy is going to hell.
Seriously, though, I always tend to overrestimate a kid's ability to process information. Most of the time, I've happily found, a child can wrap his or her brain around all sorts of amazing things, if you trust them enough to expose them to it. I know my daughter, and I'm sure if I told her tomorrow that I don't believe in God but that's okay, she'd be fine with it.
Then again, my instincts have backfired on me before. While we managed to insulate Katie from Sept. 11 that terrible day, on the first anniversary I got the bright idea to talk to Katie about it (since I was flipping through a commemorative Newsweek issue). No pictures shown, just talking, and only about the simple basics. She took it pretty well, I thought. But then for a couple of weeks after that, when she'd spot an airplane in the sky, she'd ask if it was going to hit any buildings. Suddenly those machines of wonder that she loved and collected as toys had become possibly menacing, threatening things. She's long since forgotten we even had that conversation, I think, and she still loves airplanes... but I never really got over that.
I once thought I'd be proud if my children developed an almost adult perspective on the world. I vowed Katie would know every detail of the "birds and the bees" at age six, and I've still got nine months to make good on that promise. But... but when she snuggles tightly between Jen and I in bed too early in the morning, I find myself vowing that she's going to enjoy being a kid as long as possible.
I could tell her I'm not a believer. That I'm a relativist. That there are a million other ways the universe could work besides the one she's learning about in Sunday School. I could raise her to be a skeptic, or at least an agnostic, to trust reason at least as much as faith.
But I'm just not ready. And there's always that infinitesimal chance that I might be wrong.
We've decided to raise our kids Catholic. And until they throw religion back in our faces, as I most certainly expect they will, that's what we're going to do.
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