‘We are Easter people’

April 11, the first working day after Easter, was like New Year’s Day to me.  Easter Sunday was like New Year’s Eve heralding a new year, a new life, a new chance to live your best life, a time to ring out the old shortcomings and bring in the new self. It was time to make a wish and a prayer, as Fr. Jerry Orbos said in his homily on Easter Sunday, “to not just live long, but live on.”

The sun, in my recollection, has always been out on Easter Sunday. Bright, sometimes gentle, sometimes blazing, always encouraging. It’s as if Easter was drawing the curtains on the past and all its pains, and throwing the drapes wide open to a new sunrise. Blue skies and sunshine.

I always feel like the day after Easter is a fresh start, a reboot, another chance to fulfill one’s potentials to do better. The spiritual dimension of this new “New Year” makes it less of revelry and more of introspection as we celebrate the joy of a new dawn in our lives. Salubong indeed.

“Every Holy Week reminds us any suffering and death do not define who we are because as people of faith...we will rise again. We are Easter people and that is the triumph of the Resurrection of Christ. Tomorrow will be better because we hope,” says Fr. Joy Tajonera, a Maryknoll priest tending to the spiritual, and sometimes, basic needs, of OFWs in Taiwan.

Easter also makes me realize even four months after New Year, it is not yet too late for a personal recalibration. New resolutions, new bucket lists, new punch lists. A quarter of the year has passed. They were not lost opportunities even if we did not achieve all our New Year’s goals. The last four months were not a waste because after New Year’s Eve comes Easter Sunday. In fact, no matter the day, the month or the season, it is never to early or…too late — to peel off the layers of past bad habits or the consequences of bad decisions, and start anew.

In my little garden every day, I look out for young leaves that are coiled and ready to unfurl themselves the next day, adding to the lushness of the plant, the shrub, the garden to which it belongs.

It is a gift to be able to witness new life around us every day.

***

April 11 in my life began with a birthday party that was jubilant, raucous, fun, affirming. It’s been over a month since my birthday but I never lose the glee that I feel every time I blow out a candle on a cake, lick the cake’s icing off my fork, and open gifts like a four-year-old eager to see what lies beneath the ribbons and the wrappings. Thank you, Madame Consul Helen Ong, for the rejuvenating celebration.

Then it was back to the salt mines. I love work, because it enables me to fulfill my dreams and help others fulfill theirs. I am grateful for work, and for me, being busy is a happy problem. I miss the slow days of the pandemic, but hey, pivoting is what most of us are adept at. We miss the unhurried pace of the pandemic, but we seize the new opportunities that a mask-less society gives us. The new life our Savior promised us is here. No more fear. I remember having sleepless nights during the pandemic, wondering when it would end and how we would survive it. Easter came again when we vanquished the evil virus. Every day since the pandemic was (virtually) over is Easter Sunday.

We can travel, we can go to church, we can attend big family reunions. We can openly share smiles again. People who have lost jobs were rehired, or have found a new means of livelihood. Shuttered businesses have reopened. People are no longer losing loved ones in unprecedented numbers, like they did during the pandemic. The world has been reborn.

***

After work on April 11, I went to the wake of former AIM associate dean Prof. Leni C. Panganiban, wife of retired Chief Justice Art Panganiban and the mother of a dear friend, Len Panganiban Sandejas-Yaptangco.  She died at noon on Easter Sunday, the day after her wedding anniversary. Her husband finds comfort that from his arms, she was swept into the Lord’s arms during, of all special days, His resurrection.

Her wake was paradise-like — held under trees with leafy arms that were like protective canopies and surrounded by flowers. What a graceful, lovely exit from the mortal world, Prof. Leni had, indeed. The high and the mighty paid tribute, queueing to offer their condolences to the grieving Justice Panganiban. Close friends, relatives and work associates also formed a comforting blanket around him and his children.

My April 11 — the first day after the Easter holidays — culminated in a reunion with Assumption Convent classmates to welcome to Manila balikbayans Gina Yaptangco Williams (Len Yaptangco’s sister-in-law), and Marissa Lorenzo Holburt, who I have not seen since high school graduation.

Over frozen Margarita, we relived our carefree high school days, and watching the reel of the past through others’ eyes adds episodes to your own life that you had never seen before. Listening to stories from others who grew up with you adds new chapters to cherish in your own life as well. We shared stories from the past, and present, knowing as one of my classmates said, we were in a “safe circle.”

Whew! What’s in a day?

A life.

Happy Easter, everybody!

(You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)