Breathtaking!

“And now for something really breathtaking!”

That was the pronouncement my beautiful 10-year old niece Emma made as she picked up her recorder yesterday to play for me an exercise she had learned in music class.

I loved her excitement—and she probably has no idea that ‘breathtaking’ is a word I seemed to have used a great deal in the last few months in teaching world history. I don’t know why all of a sudden I have embraced that word so often in my classes, but I was tickled by Emma’s enthusiasm as she made music for me yesterday. I had been treated to a whirlwind catch-up of everything that had been going on in Emma and her dashing brother Jack’s lives since I had last been with them on New Year’s Day. Jack wanted to show me one of the costumes he had been designing. Emma wanted to show me the trophy she had won in a music contest last month, and then ran to the piano to play for me “The Slavic Dance” piece she had played in the music festival. I got to read Jack a book about Arthur forgetting his underwear, and Emma showed me a video of her gymnastics, and we played two rounds of the game “Clue.” (One time it was Colonel Mustard, and one time it was Miss Scarlett) The pace of the catch-up itself breathtaking!

And the rate at which they are growing up is breathtaking…

Emma’s promise that her recorder playing would be breathtaking reminded me of the old salvo,“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” I have not been home in the United States very long, but here are a few of those moments in the last 48 hours which took my breath away:

• Watching sunrise over New York City as my plane from Amman landed at JFK airport just after dawn

• My breathtakingly beautiful sister Elizabeth hugging me at the airport, offering me a BLT sandwich to welcome me back to America

• driving around our home in Westwood and seeing the beautiful, blossoming pear trees

• going over to Price Hill Chili Friday night to see loyal friend Sylvia and walking in and seeing a host of family friends: there was Mr. Justice, my senior English teacher, and over in the corner Harry and Ruby, friends from my father’s breakfast haunt, and a couple that met during the dark days of World War II, and in love ever since

• biting into a real Reuben sandwich with the chatter of Emma on my right and Jack on my left

• seeing the blossoming daffodils and fragrant hyacinths in our front yard in the exact same spots as I have remembered them every spring for the last 40 years

• I went with my father to a store called Harbor Freight Tools and stood amazed that there was not a single thing in the store that I knew anything about! But my father was as happy as I would be in a music store!

• enjoying my first banana shake of the season at the Creamy Whip down the street—another place we have frequented my whole life

• and on the same gastronomic front—the whole family and friend Sylvia—chowing down on LaRosa’s pizza last night, a tradition of pizza for us on Saturday night going back to the 1960s

• sharing an Easter morning call with treasured friends Tracy and Grace MacBride, people whose love and support make life ever more bearable

Those are just some of those little moments that have provided me restorative relief of Spring Break.

This morning my father and I arose early and ventured over to Spring Grove Cemetery for a sunrise Easter service. Our family’s church stopped doing sunrise services maybe a decade ago, but I find the early morning service the most meaningful on Easter, and after my mother’s death in 2006, we discovered that Spring Grove offered a sunrise service.

It was about 30 degrees this morning, quite brisk, but clear, and as we gathered in the pre-dawn cold there was an elegant mist rising from the lake, and we faced the rising sun, with tulips and daffodils rising up from the cold ground around us. We sang the familiar songs, with the sharp query, “O Death, where is thy sting?” the most resonant of the triumph of Easter.

When we later met up with the rest of the family, Jack was so proud of his “new” blazer for Easter. It turns out that this scarlet-colored blazer is something my father had saved, and was a blazer that I had worn on an Easter long-ago, probably circa 1970. Jack reveled in his handsome look and delighted that we had both shared this jacket.

This morning I recalled another Easter, around 1992 I think, when this guy Steve who had been hanging around my sister for awhile, came and spent Easter with us, and I finally got to spend time and get to know him. My sister’s happiness around this guy took my breath away, and his humor and warmth made my mother feel loved, and my father feel safe. I told Steve then that he was the best thing to ever happen to my sister. I count Easter as the marking point as to when I too fell in love with this guy who has made our family complete.

Easter is a breathtakingly beautiful holiday. We inhale the fragrances of spring flowers, we hear the laughter of the children, our eyes see the colors emerging, and our hearts and souls savor the promises and blessings of what takes our breath away.

And those are just some of the breathtaking moments from my first 48 hours home…