Her Daughter’s View

With Easter having been 3 days ago, I figured what better way to kick things off. Easter, along with every other holiday ever, was a blast in the Vincent house. My mom went above and beyond for everything she possibly could. Every year, she would hide my basket somewhere in the house, whether it was a kitchen cabinet, or the washing machine, always somewhere clever, and she’d leave a trail, made out of cotton balls (Easter bunny’s tail) from my bedroom door, to whatever room it was hidden in. And she’d fill the basket with candy, sometimes clothes, sometimes toiletries, sometimes games, and sometimes all of the above. Even up until last year (my 23rd Easter) she used the same purple basket with little dragonflies on it. And when my husband Mark and I first started going out, she got him an Easter basket, blue with his name on it, and used it for him every year since, as well. Mark and I’s tradition was going and having breakfast with Mom on Easter, because Dad golfed in the mornings. Sometimes we would go out, and sometimes we would cook for her at home, depending on how sick she was that year. Last year, her last Easter with us, she went into the hospital. So Mark and I helped my Dad, Jeff, make a little Easter supper, and had some friends and family over to their house. And to our surprise, she still managed to make us Easter baskets and have them on the counter for us when we got there. With her passing being as quick, and mildly unexpected as it was, I couldn’t have imagined last year would be the last Easter with her here, or the year before being the last year of our Easter breakfast tradition, or this year being my first Easter without a Mom. It was a weird year. We bought my Dad an Easter basket, trying to keep his spirits up, and present some sort of normalcy, but truthfully is was soul crushing, waking up Easter morning and doing laundry instead of taking Mom to breakfast. Maybe next year will be a little less weird, but for now, I am relishing in the memories or a Mom who forgot she was sick when it came to making me smile.