Merry Easter
I don’t remember my Granddad that well. You know what it’s like; your earliest memories typically look like they were shot on an old camera that’s all grainy and out of focus.
My only solid memories of Granddad are just of the Easter weekend that he died. I must’ve been about six or seven and I didn’t understand what was going on. You don’t at that age, do you? That and y’know, Easter. Kids are always overexcited at Easter. You wouldn’t really take in the fact you’re never going to see your granddad again.
My Mum, Dad, my older brother James, and I all piled into the car with our things on Good Friday and sung carols as we started the long drive to the little village up north where Granny and Granddad lived.
Mum passed around those plastic crowns of thorns that people always wear at that time of that year; get everyone in the festive spirit, y’know? I only used to wear my crown of thorns for Mum and dad’s sake. Dad always used to buy the cheap plastic ones from the supermarket down the road and I always thought they were uncomfortable, but I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?
We picked up James’ then-girlfriend Caitlin on the way. Caitlin’s mum and dad had never made a big deal about Easter, and she got on with our family really well, so they’d agreed to let her come up to visit Granny and Granddad with us for the holidays.
We passed the fields of daffodils and baby bunnies on our way into Toddeston.
Granny and Granddad lived in a house just outside the village. We passed a few country roads before we got a glimpse of their old farmhouse at the top of the hill.
It was as we were getting close that Dad started talking about how he wasn’t sure if Granny was going to be able to cope with living all the way out here on her own.
Mum shushed him. Don’t bring the mood down, Clive! Easter is meant to be a happy time!
Anyway, so we pulled up in the driveway and the front door opened and Granny stepped out.
“Oh wow! How you’ve grown!” said Granny as I ran up to give a hug.
“Merry Easter everyone! Oh, and James! Oh my! You’re as tall as your father! Oh, hello Caitlin! It’s so wonderful to see you again!”
Granddad didn’t say anything, but he smiled as we all went inside before he had to go and sit down out of everyone’s way.
Dad and James went out to decorate the back garden and put up the Easter cross while Granny fussed over us, and Mum and Caitlin helped prepare the Last Supper.
After dinner we all gathered around the TV to watch a film together. There aren’t that many child-friendly movies about Easter; nowhere near as many as Christmas. There’s usually a repeat of Jesus Christ Superstar, and there’s the Passion of the Christ, but I was never allowed to stay up to watch that. This year Mum found there was an animated children’s movie about the crucifixion featuring talking animals in place of Jesus, the disciples and the Romans. I remember liking it a lot at the time, but I showed it to my own kids again many years later and found it was pretty dire. How did my parents put up with it?
At the end of the day as the sun was setting and Granddad said he was getting weary, the grownups agreed that it was probably time to see out Good Friday and put the kids to bed.
Mum helped Granddad squat down beside me, his knees shaking as he did so, with his bushy grey beard hanging a few inches from his face and showing me his old toothy smile. It was only now I could see how pale he looked; you could tell he was sick.
“So: what do you want most of all this Easter, Tom?” he asked in his hoarse and croaky voice.
I told him that I really wanted a PlayStation. Granddad smiled and said that he’d tell Jesus for me and see what he could do.
Mum took a picture as he gave me a hug and said,
“I’ll always be with you. Remember, I’ll always be with you.”
We all went out into the garden for evening prayers. We lit candles and placed them on the altar beneath the Easter Cross and Mum read from the book of John.
Everyone sang hymns and gazed across at the hundreds and hundreds of multicoloured twinkling Easter lights that Dad and James had strung up across the garden over the course of the afternoon.
It was after we’d all finished singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” that Granddad said he was very tired and needed to lie down in the green pastures beneath the cross. Mum and Dad and Granny all agreed as they wiped away their tears and started heading inside. Granddad sat leaning against the cross.
We went inside and Dad shut the door behind us
“Why can’t Granddad come in with us, Dad?” I asked.
“I…G-Granddad lives outside now, son…”
Dad looked a bit shaky. He was still pretty teary about the whole thing. Whatever it was.
Mum then got us all to prepare the fish, loaves and Wine for Jesus and the sugar lumps for the horses that drove his chariot.
Mum took me upstairs to bed and told me to run a bath. She gave me the sleeping pill for the holy day of rest and warned me I was to take it as soon as I went to bed. She then went back downstairs, and the grownups all enjoyed the rest of the evening while I got ready for bed.
James and Caitlin retired to their room at the end of the hall. James started to take off his crown of thorns before Caitlin stopped him and asked him to leave it on. I didn’t get it back then, but I understand why she said that now.
I went into my room after my bath and looked out into the back garden and I saw Granddad still lying against the cross. His eyes were closed, and his shoulders were rising and falling as he dozed.
I wondered if I should take him a blanket in case he got cold out there, but I’d probably just get it trouble.
Anyway, I went to bed and I lay there staring up at the ceiling with all sorts childish things buzzing through my head. I really hoped I would get that Playstation. You often find once you’ve grown up that you can barely begin to describe what it’s like being a child on Good Friday. Nothing else seems to matter in that moment, not Jesus, not your granddad living outside now, nothing. It’s a magical state that you’ll never be able to truly experience again.
I could almost picture Jesus flying to our house and coming down the chimney on Saturday and wandering through the silent house. The family would be spending the whole day in a blissful coma that reflects Jesus’ deep sleep of death as he brings us his blessings.
I yawned and eventually managed to drift off.
*
I never told my Mum and Dad that I woke up that night.
It was my own fault. I’d forgotten to take my sleeping pill. I’d probably end up waking up late on Easter Sunday now.
There was chanting coming from outside. I couldn’t understand Aramaic back then, so it just sounded like gibberish to me.
I crept up to the bedroom window and peered out through the gap under the curtains, careful not to draw attention to myself.
I don’t think it’s strictly speaking a rule that children under 13 aren’t allowed to see the rituals that bring our Easter presents, but Mum and Dad always said that Jesus comes and turns naughty boys and girls into pillars of salt, so I knew that I was doing something bad.
There were now flaming torches lining the path to the crucifix, but the crucifix had been taken down and was lying on the grass. I could see Mum in her robes with her hood down waiting by the cross in the torchlight. She’d clearly been crying, but she held that fragile smile that she always used to use just to keep up appearances.
Two figures with their black hoods up (who I assumed were Dad and James) led Granddad over to the cross. Granddad was now dressed in just a towel. He looked so thin and pale and had these horrible deep red marks all over his back. He had a different crown of thorns on his head, this one looked like the expensive kind, and it glistened with blood in the torchlight.
Granddad lay down on the cross and dad and James raised ceremonial spears and chanted in Aramaic again as they began the ceremony. They used the spears to punch holes through Granddad’s hands. He strangely didn’t cry out as the holes began to bleed. I always cried whenever I cut my fingers, but those cuts were tiny compared to the gaping wounds in Granddad’s palms. The expression on Granddad’s face was one of peace and tranquillity.
Dad and James then began threading fairy lights through his stigmata and pulling them taught and binding his arms to the cross. Dad and James then pulled at the cables and raised the cross upright once more and hooked the cables to the pegs that they’d dug into the lawn earlier. The fairy lights all around the garden and threaded through Granddad’s body made the garden light up with all the colours of the rainbow.
Mum put down some buckets for Granddad’s stigmata to bleed into and Granddad smiled down at Mum, Dad, James and Caitlin, and they all started to sing…I think it was “Stairway to Heaven”, I can’t quite remember.
It was beautiful.
I’m so lucky to have witnessed this. Its only happened once in our family. Human sacrifices bring the best Easter presents. All my friends at school were jealous when I told them.
I’ve never had a chance to practice this particular ritual myself. Maybe it’s just bad luck that I’ve never had a sick and elderly relative dying around Easter time in the years since Granddad. Granny was a summer death and Uncle Ned went around September. Shame. Maybe I’ll go around Easter and you can do me, eh? That’ll be fun.
Anyway, so I went back to bed and took my sleeping pill immediately. I tucked myself in tightly and started counting sheep.
Jesus would be coming soon! Jesus would be coming soon!
*
I woke up on Sunday morning and I was ecstatic.
Jesus had been! Jesus had been!
I was still very sleepy from the effects of the pill, but I felt warm and elated at the thought of what was waiting for me downstairs.
I hurried out of my bedroom door and downstairs, still in my pyjamas, and saw that outside on the lawn, Granddad’s body had vanished, and in its place had been left the biggest pile of Easter presents I’d ever seen! It can’t have been as big as I remember it being, but to little seven-year-old me, it was the size of a mountain!
I was joined by Mum and Dad who had wandered downstairs in their dressing gowns, James and Caitlin followed and all piled out of the house and everyone picked out their presents from the pile. Everyone had their own large stacks of presents by the end of it.
Mum got out the camera and took pictures and she and Granny smiled sadly as I energetically ripped open my presents.
It took me till the bottom of the pile, but I found what I wanted! It was wrapped in shiny red paper with little golden chariots on the side and with a big label that said, “TO THOMAS, LOVE JESUS.”
I tore open the present as fast as I could, and I screamed in delight when I saw the logo on the box!
“A Playstation! A Playstation!” I shouted to the heavens. “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Granddad! Thank you!”
I then fell onto the lawn, hugging my PlayStation to my chest.
Mum lowered the camera, having captured that moment of elation and beamed her fragile smile across at me and wiped away a tear. She then cleared her throat.
“Now, say your prayers, Tom, be a good boy,” she said.
I nodded frantically and put the box on the ground in front of me. I pushed myself up off the grass and knelt in front of my pile of presents and clasped my hands together solemnly.
“…and my presents are his body and blood. And as our loved ones return to the Earth, so shall he return to us one day. Amen.”
Watch the cartoon adaptation of this story on Youtube
