The road less traveled by...

We celebrated Easter this weekend. 

Something felt like it was missing.

The sky was a brilliant blue, and the warmth of the sun was gratefully received as we trekked through the mountains playing Frisbee golf with four little boys...who aren't so little any more.   The Frisbee's were found in morning Easter Baskets with smiles of joy.  Four little baskets...and a fifth one...for our buttercup. 

I am the mother of five living sons.  I am the mother of twins...who are not.  I am the mother of a daughter...who I hope upon hope will be.  Four baskets...and a fifth.  The fifth contained a little white duck-platypus with a pink bow...a platy-puck.  Just like the purple and yellow one we bought two years ago...before.  Before.  It sat next to a tiny chocolate bunny.  The same kind as the white chocolate one we bought two years ago....before.  Before.    The basket was small.  Feminine.  It had a label..."To Princess Buttercup" 

I got out my memory box this morning.  I've been doing that a lot lately.  Tiny little hands and little feet captured in clay....perfect.  The same size as my daughter must be right now.   I read the little label from the Easter basket given...before.  Before.  "To our Sweet Baby Boy"  The white chocolate bunny looks exactly the same.  Amazing how long candy can last.  Preserved. 

Four baskets for my sons.  My eldest son was not expected.  His bi polar mania has stolen him again.  He isn't speaking to us.  Alienation. 

Manic energy and paranoia tells him that we are against him.  It tells him he is alone. That we are not to be trusted with his heart.  It warns him against the family that has loved him from the beginning and will love him till the end.  A missing Easter basket reminded me...that he was gone too.  Just like Simon and Alexander.  By choice. 

We trekked through the mountains, in awe of a bald eagle and an abundance of blue birds, hawks, and robins.  We felt the glow of sweat on our brows as we munched the innards of carefully painted eggs that once boasted the artistic endeavors of a family determined to live life to the fullest.  Bunnies, flowers, butterflies, dots, spirals, wavy lines...and even a lion.  The most beautiful eggs I've ever seen on an Easter day.   The colored shells littered the path behind us...to turn into the earthy soil of the wooded trail.  An egg I was holding was purple.  A beautiful purple.  With three yellow buttercups painted by the attentive hand of a sensitive boy-child...who remembers.  I put it back in my pocket.  I couldn't break it open.

This morning, I went to look for that egg, to take a picture of it.  But it was gone.  Someone must have eaten it.  I could see the fragments in the garbage.  Purple and yellow egg shells in little pieces.  Gone.  Like my twins.  Next to the purple and yellow were also fragments of a bright red egg...bright red...like the heated passion of bi-polar anger.  I dug up the fragments...separating them from freshly ground coffee remains and a crust of bread.  I carried them outside, and buried them in my garden.  Under the leaves of some buttercups that were emerging.  I sat there awhile, and while I sat, I felt the tears in my eyes as a butterfly landed on the spot of color those tiny buttercups offered. 

This road...the road of walking forward amist different forms of loss....

It is marked by tears and a love as bright as the colors of a rainbow...or an Easter egg.