It's the Easter Bagle, Charlie Brown

Oh...BAGEL, not Beagle.


Today it was the Easter Bagel, as Ned decided he and Marta would bring bagels, coffee, orange juice and fresh strawberries to Atria. They had an Easter egg hunt to go to at 11, so would have to come to Atria at 9:30.  I was fairly certain my mother would be asleep then, but he called her at 9 to make sure she would be up and dressed in half an hour.

(We didn't get there at 9:30 when they arrived because the good one of us was off being a good Catholic and going to church while the other one of us sat home being sinful and guilty. It's too bad we will spend eternity in different places...)

When we arrived at Atria she was up, dressed, and enjoying a visit with Ned and Marta.

Things like this confuse her and she asked many times why we were there, apologized for not having anything to serve us, asked where the Easter lily that Ned and Marta brought had come from, and interrupted people to ask the same questions again, but it really didn't matter.  The whole point was that we were all together and having a good time.  I "blame" this all on Ned.  Easter is such a non-holiday for me, now that we don't have kids or lots of family around, that I was just going to forget it and cook the (expensive) leg of lamb I bought for dinner for Walt and me. I knew it wouldn't matter to my mother and knew that she would not want to come to our house for dinner.

But Ned, bless him, had other ideas and in the end, he was right.  Whether she knew it was a holiday or not, whether she remembers that we were there or not, it was a fun couple of hours and there are precious few holidays left to celebrate with her these days.

Ned got a bagel all fixed up for Grandma

Grandma said she didn't know what a bagel was and wasn't sure she wanted one.
(but she did finish the half Ned gave her)

Jeri called later in the afternoon to wish us a Happy Easter.  She said she had just spoken with her grandmother who, when asked what she was doing for Easter said "Nothing.  Just sitting here."  Sigh.  My mother is an exercise in learning to take life's moments as they come, to live in the moment, and not expect the moment to carry over into the rest of our lives.