As I overdose on Chocolate today, I realized I almost missed a holiday!! Tsk Tsk!! So this is a little sad, but I think holidays for Jane and Lisbon are most of the time.

DISCLAIMER: Chocolate, and a new Ipod, yes, nothing else, sadly.

APRIL - EASTER - Straw Hats

Oh Crap! Easter. Was that today? For Teresa Lisbon, it had been just another Sunday in the spring for too many years. She knew it was a holiday. People wanted always wanted that day off to spend with family. She used to volunteer to work on it for them. She figured if they had family to spend the time with and she didn't, why not. Besides, you never knew when something like that would work out when a favor had to be called. She didn't really see herself as the kind of person who weighed and measured every good act, but sometimes, it didn't hurt to have people owe you.

As far as she was concerned for years, the best part of Easter was buying half price chocolate on that Monday. She never got the point behind dying eggs. no one ever ate them. You just wound up with a carton of colored hard boiled eggs. When she was little, oh those were dangerous thoughts.

But it seemed those thoughts, once allowed to drift through her conscious mind, would not be shoved so easily back into that box, the one marked "Pain, do not open". No, her mind would ignore those warnings and ruthlessly plunge ahead.

She remembered the feeling of a hat upon her head. It was usually made of straw and either pink or white. It was shoved over those carefully curled hair and bangs that got trimmed the night before. She would be scolded for playing with the elastic band that was to go under her small chin. Whoever made those had no idea the size of a young girl. They were either too tight and left a mark under your chin on your neck and made it hard to talk or they were too loose and tickled your neck. If you were lucky, the hat would hang back on your head like a cowgirl in an old movie. Mostly, you endured the pain of that tight band that pinched. You did it because you were told over and over how sweet it looked. But mostly you did it so as not to incur THAT look down the pew at church.

And Church on Easter Sunday. The choir would sing everything it seemed to the small girl. There were times she would wonder if they were just making excuses to sing so they could be there longer. She was pretty sure it was done on purpose.

After Church, after her brothers were re-tucked into their pants, and ties straightened, they would pose for a picture on the steps of the church. All the families did this. Over the years, as she remembered, it must have been nice to have a fixed reference point as the children grew and the styles changed.

They would on rare occaisions stay for the egg hunt at the church. But generally, it was considered too rough on the expensive and fragile dress clothing. They would go home and pick up those hard boiled eggs around their own yard. It would be weeks before the last one's odor gave away that hiding spot.

After secretly eating the ears off a chocolate rabbit, they would be washed and dressed again, to head off to a relatives. Easter was a boring holiday. No new toys, usually too cold to play outside in their dress clothes. They could take a sedate walk, generally sheparded by a spinster aunt. Teresa wryly reflected that the spinster aunt was probably the same as her current age. Funny how that perception changed for her over time.

That last Easter was like the others. It seemed to be in the same easy pattern, with no hint that it would all come to a screeching halt the following year. She did try for that one year. But, without her there, the clothes weren't right, and Teresa knew it. The picture on the church steps seemed to mock her as she felt those whispers while they waited. They never took that picture.

Eggs were colored, but kept in the carton. After that, she didn't even bother. It was another one of those little details a child overwhelmed with trying to be all things to her siblings just let go.

She watched as a family with 2 little girls in those straw hats walked past her that day. One was a blonde and one a brunette. The happy parents carried a little boy with blonde curls and a charming smile. For a brief moment, the pain of her past was replaced by a faint whisper of a longing for what she did not have.

Letting out a deep breath, she reminded herself to pick up some half price chocolate bunnies tomorrow.

Those angst bunnies took over again.

So, I know a lot of you have signed up for story alerts on this one. I would love to hear from you. Suggestions for holidays are appreciated, but I really only feel like I can write the American ones.