Today is Palm Sunday. Years ago, this would have meant dressing up in a dress that was inevitably itchy around the collar or sleeves, but absolutely beautiful in photos. My mom would brush my hair and my sister's, put on make-up and Tuscany perfume, and we would slip out of the house (literally- the shoes we would inevitably wear had no tread) and head to church. There, we would seek out seats, but more likely, would shuffle against one of the walls, and try to find a place where there was a slight indentation before the window, enough that our small bottoms could sit on and offering relief for our stockinged legs. The sun would shine through the stained glass, lighting up the pews (and the elderly people's white hair) with rainbows. At the end of mass, after the singing and hallelujahs and "may peace be with you" hand shaking (and peace signs with our friends in other aisles), we would walk into the lobby, where one of the ushers would hand us palms.
These were important. They signified two things- one, that there was only a week left until Easter, and two, that we were going to my Grandma Bea and Pop-Pop Tom's house for a celebratory meal with my cousins and their parents. As a child, those meals were in the afternoon, but after soccer became a mainstay in our lives, games pushed them back to evening. In some cases, sports actually superseded churchgoing, much to my mom's chagrin, and she would instead attend mass and bring the palms home for us.
But the constant was the palms, and my Pop-Pop carefully curving them into crosses. He was a wiz with his hands- he'd been a musician in the army, and a tinkerer for life. He could repair anything electrical just by figuring it out, and loved to carve pieces of wood into shapes, most often ducks. Tom loved eating pineapples, a habit we joked developed when he was recovering in Hawaii from injuries that earned him a Purple Heart in World War II. We used to bring them to him on birthdays, for Christmas, and of course, as part of the desserts for Palm Sunday and Easter.
When he got older, he developed Parkinson's, and wasn't able to whittle or fold anymore. His hands shook, and his dexterity lessoned. He couldn't play the organ in his living room or add to the collection of water fowl that had seemed to grow endlessly on the fireplace mantle. We had to carve up the pineapples for him, and cut the pieces smaller the older he got. He had a stroke in 2014, and it became harder to recognize the spark that had always lit up a room in his younger years. You could still see it playing in his eyes, but his mouth and voice betrayed him, and it was difficult to watch.
He passed away last February, and I'm grateful that I'm not worrying about him now, in this pandemic. I worry enough about my grandmother, his wife whose dementia has gotten to the point where she doesn't recognize any of us anymore. At his funeral, she spent much of it saying how sorry she felt for the deceased's family- until she would remember that meant her, and then she would cry for a couple of minutes, and then go back to blissful ignorance. She has no idea of what is going on outside her apartment, and again, I'm thankful, as it means she isn't scared.
Today, I woke up and when I got downstairs, I saw the pineapple I'd bought on a whim through an online produce company last week. I took it down, and with my daughters next to me, carved it into pieces, telling them about how Pop-Pop used to love eating it. They were old enough when he passed that they remember him, and I'm glad I can tell them stories so he will live on in their memories. I can picture him still, laughing and sitting on the sofa, folding and bending his palms like a magician, taking them from long and straight into religious symbols. My cousin Jennie came by with her family to drop off some clothes for my kids- her stepdaughter is a couple of years and sizes bigger, and there was a "care package" for E's birthday as well. They stood at the fence while we stood in the yard, and we reminisced about how when we were the kids' ages, we would have been at our grandparents, celebrating the holiday. The kids played invisible catch, and we talked about plans for the future- next year, when we are all taking a big vacation together for our spring break. Jen and I went over how we are teaching our students and working with colleagues from afar (she teachers preschool and I'm in high school, but we are both dealing with the strain of tech, and being on computers all day).
It was good to see them- a small glimpse of normalcy in this chaotic world. We may not have the palms this year, but we had the pineapple, and the stories, and our little family safely together. And that's all we really need.
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