It’s the night before Easter. I know, we aren’t exactly practicing Christians. We haven’t followed the whole Catholic thing for decades.

But this is the night before a holiday. It’s the night when I used to put out the pretty eggs that you all had colored the day before. I’d get the baskets ready, adding the eggs, and the jelly beans and the chocolate bunnies. Dad would make a huge arrow out of candy on the floor of the hallway, as if you didn’t know that you should come into the living room to find your treats.

He and I would spend an hour hiding chocolate eggs and jelly beans all around the house. In the morning, you three would get up, all excited. You’d find your baskets and hunt for candy. There would be laughs as one of you located a chocolate egg in a shoe or inside of a Kleenex box.

Breakfast would consist of candy, hard boiled colored eggs and a slice of cassatta, in keeping with our Sicilian tradition.

When you were little ones, we’d go to Grandma and Grampa’s house for a dinner of ham, and pasta and more candy. The cousins would all run around, the aunts and uncles would talk, laugh, argue about politics and drink wine.

I miss all of that.

I miss the morning hugs. The sweet pajama clad three of you with your baskets in your hands. I miss the big dinner.

Mostly I miss the feeling of joy and celebration.

Spring is the idea of renewal, rebirth, returned hope. Spring is the time of flowers and trees bursting into life. It’s when our gardens are still dreams and our thoughts are all about warm beach days and barbecues with friends.

Spring lets us ignore the truth of our lives for a bit. Easter is the definition of that forward looking hope.

This spring is so different, though. This Easter feels like something unknown.

We don’t know when or if there will be a rebirth. We are beginning to wonder if the true rebirth will come without humans. Will there be lambs, and chicks and baby birds and buds on trees, but no humans anywhere to be found?

We don’t know. We are living our lives in isolation now. Living in fear of an enemy we cannot see.

But it’s the night before Easter. My dear children, my adult children, I am sitting here tonight thinking about those Easter Baskets, and that candy and those hopeful springs.

I miss you.

I wish that you were here for some eggs and some cassatta. I wish that you were here for some ham, and some potatoes. And for some hugs and some laughs.

I love you all just as much as I did on your very first Easters.

Easter is about hope and renewal. It’s about a better future.

I miss you.

Happy spring. Happy renewal. Happy hope, my dears.

I still love you so.