Easter Morning, in the Year of Lilies and Light

By Peter Bowden

He woke to the sound of church bells and sunlight slanting through curtains like gold ribbons. His name was Michael, but the old women at church called him “angel boy,” especially on Easter when he wore his white robe and held the brass cross high, his small hands steady, his heart thudding like a drum inside his chest.

The world felt different on Easter. The sky was bluer, the grass greener, the air full of something old and new at once. He could smell lilies before he opened the church doors. Inside, the candles flickered like stars and the choir swelled like thunder wrapped in silk. He stood at the altar, the wax of the candles softening in the heat, and felt as if he were floating, halfway between heaven and this place called home.

After Mass, the egg hunt was a flurry of laughter and small hands grasping at color. Eggs hid in flower beds, behind tombstones in the churchyard, tucked beneath azaleas that hummed with bees. Michael found a green one with a dime inside and thought it must be a kind of miracle. Later, his cousins arrived in a parade of cars, and the kitchen burst into a symphony of clinking glasses and screen doors banging shut. The ham steamed, the deviled eggs grinned up from their tray, and Michael sat next to his grandfather, the sun warm on his shoulders, the jelly beans in his pocket beginning to melt again.

It would be years before he understood the weight of the day, but even then, it felt holy. Not just in the church, but in the laughter, the grass stains, the warmth of a long, wide afternoon.

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