A Different Kind of Easter ...

Every year, I celebrate Easter according to the Orthodox Church, and thus "off" from everybody else. And "off" it is, trust me, to other folks around me, too... My customs, as a Romanian, are very different from anyone else's, including, probably, the people in my own church here, that come from countries other than Romania... Used to what we do in my family, I cook a fridge-full of food, and clean my house from top to bottom, I fast from animal products (i.e. I become a "vegan") for the last week of the Lent and eat and drink holy bread and water every morning, on an empty stomach, while I say my prayer - to respect the Death and the Torture and the upcoming Resurrection of the Son of Man...

The time from Good Friday till midnight Saturday is a sad and somber time: it's when Jesus was actually killed.... I feel like the world is empty those 36-some hours...I feel a void, like we all got sucked into this deep, bottomless black hole; time stretches.... Then, at midnight, on Easter Saturday, I go to church and bring the Light of Easter into my house, and when I hear the 'Jesus has risen, He has truly risen song', I feel the world coming to life again; the sun WILL indeed rise the next day, as Jesus now brings us light. The next morning, hungry and empty after the fasting and the sleepless night, tired from all the cleaning and the cooking, I eat the first "meat-full" breakfast and I crack a red dyed egg. That first meal tastes better than all the meals over the entire year. It's the reward at the end of a "different" kind of week; it's the reward and the "thank you" to God that allowed me to keep my customs intact for another year; it's the "thank you" to me, that I have not once more forgotten about where I come from...

Easter is a miraculous and mysterious time for me, and I find it, just like my whole family and culture do, the most fascinating of Christian Holidays! We all get born, but only "Jesus was risen". It's the most hopeful of holidays! It gives us the promise of eternal life, and I believe it's no random happening that it should occur in the spring, for that very reason...

Although a spiritual believer in every sense of the word, I am not particularly a very religious person. However, I have never questioned these feelings, and this "order" of things ! They were passed on to me, along with my brown eyes, curly hair and short stature... And just like that, they're here to stay forever ... I have done these things and lived these emotions for years now. Even after I moved here (and people invite me out drinking and partying on "my" Good Friday), and I don't have the support of my culture to keep me going (the said people have no clue why I say "no, I have to cook and clean for Easter"), it's something I do every year. To me, it's the "order" of things that has to keep on going... It's how my ancestors left it to me, and I have the duty (unwritten anywhere but in my heart) to pass it on, and at least for this lifetime, not to let it die... Should I skip this "order" of things for just one time, one year...I would feel incomplete...

This year, there will be no one to help me break the egg, and no one to share breakfast with me, after the night of the Resurrection. But tradition, order, love, hope and ... life ... move on...