There's another side to it

You have heard about the good things about expat life--new friends, new places, new foods...but that's all new, new new. If you have no old, there isn't much left. I didn't say nothing, but not much. And if you spend a holiday with little tradition (or none) there isn't much left. The things that depend on tradition (as some of the very important but not the most important certainly should) are meaningless now.

And it's lonely, to spend a holiday you usually spend with certain person(s) without them, even for one year. No matter what you eat, there's an empty space at the table. And the empty space at the table is one that--perhaps--will never be filled.

Well, I'm certainly blessed that Grandma and Auntie are, if not in good health, still around. For, if still alive on earth there is an invisible cord that binds us besides the ones of love and blood. But to spend Easter without them is incredibly lonely.

I feel like Tommy Sands (no, not really!) saying, "My song for you this evening, it's not to make you sad," (that song brings tears) for this little tidbit of poetry I will share with you. But that's the honest truth, don't let it spoil your Easter (if you celebrate it, I don't know exactly who reads this). In fact, to take it a step further, I'm posting it on Good Friday, instead of on Easter Sunday. Tomorrow will be busy, so I will probably abstain or just say hi...no, I can't post on Easter, okay, tomorrow I'll tell you what we would've done and will do as substitute.

Lonely Easter
A lonely dinner for two
Where six should have gathered
A festive Sunday laced with...heartache.
White-gold, spicy smelling trumpets
Smelling of butterflies...
A house, empty of them--
Empty as a long-ago grave, but there is no happiness in this emptiness.
Oh, the world is full of people
And no different in the Eastertime--
But I'd take two, if offered me;
I think they would take four.

Grandma and Auntie, we're thinking of you.
Saro