Easter Love

I met the angel of my life at Easter time. A middle-aged woman came bearing the biggest chocolate bunny I had ever seen...and it was love at first sight. My father was to marry her daughter in early May and she came to meet my sister and me. From this moment on, she was to be my grandmother in every way, although I never called her so. Rather, we had names of endearment over the years.


That we met for the first time over something sweet and sentimental is most appropriate for how our relationship was to grow. I think of her every day because she is the inner voice of my life--the guiding spirit, the way an angel is supposed to be. Of course, she would just wave her hand at me at such a thought if I had expressed it to her. I was the youngest in the family and she the oldest, as she came to live with us after that May 4th marriage that brought me a new mother, who that day wore a lovely dress and beautiful corsage. We formed a conspiracy and a companionship that fitted us both like the white gloves she always made sure I had to wear on Easter.

I had lost a mother so very early in life to an illness that had lingered for almost all my young life. I not only lost a mother but the years that were too painful to remember. However, my memories of my grandmother and me have never faded because they were the years when she held my hand, and later when she was to take my arm. Our Easter love lasted a very long time--long after chocolate bunnies, cellophane wrapped baskets filled to the brim with jelly beans and all manner of treats, and outfits she sewed for me. We were life chums.

When I began Victoria magazine, I always said that it was for the women who loved their grandmothers as I did. And who would never forget the legacy of womanhood they gave them. It was much more than appreciation of a gracious time. It was a sense of what was beautiful in life--of what to hold on to that expresses the best we have to give. My angel gave me many gifts, but the gift of her unselfishness was truly the most important one. I paid homage to her by beginning a program at Victoria that honored women who practiced it in their lives. It was called A Star in Our Crown, named for the hymn she loved and the lesson she taught me--that when we do something for which we expect no reward, a star is placed in our crown.

My grandmother's crown was filled with stars for the kindnesses of my life. beginning with bringing a lonely child Easter love.


Resources - Cookies by Dancing Dear Baking Co. Painted wooden eggs and wooden bunny from Wisteria. Chocolates by Cibelli Chocolates.