Washing off the top of my favourite sugar bowl, I smiled. My youngest son had given it to me years ago, long before he disappeared, mysteriously. Later I headed down the road and noticed a candy cane lying by the side of the road. Ah, that was from the Parade of Lights. They always handed out treats along the route. This one never arrived at its destination. Closer to the store, I passed a man raking leaves into a pile on the corner. I said hello, thinking, last year those leaves adorned a huge maple. Once beautiful, now they were being thrown away, yet there under the blanket of dead leaves tiny shoots poked their heads out of the cold fertile soil.

The bowl, a bittersweet reminder of a precious life that was part of mine, the candy cane a promise of good now wasted and the leaves, though dead, will become the soil again, part of the cycle of growth and renewal.

What is dead will live anew. That is the promise of Easter, the promise of God for those who are changed, those who believe.

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