Good Friday Memories

As I was sitting here at my computer earlier today, my mind wandered to Good Friday "holidays" we had when I was a kid. We either had half of the day off or in later years, the whole day off for the religious observance of Good Friday. My family is United Methodist, so we didn't do some of the things that my Catholic friends seemed to be required to do on this solemn holy day. But today, here in Virginia, it is sunny but cold. Not like the Good Fridays of my youth. I am reminded of a long ago time when my sister and I were in our church choir and we had a community worship service to observe Good Friday. The service took place at the Nazarene church where our children's choir was to sing. It was hot that day! We must have had the whole day off school because the service began in early afternoon. I remember my mother picking us up from the Nazarene church and we were dressed in lacy "dress-up" clothes that were itchy and hot. We begged my mother to let us "please, please put shorts on!" when we got home. It was so warm that she did. Another Good Friday I remember was also hot and a friend of mine was over. Our younger brothers were friends too, so we decided to hide the plastice Easter eggs outside for them to find. We had just moved to this house and we didn't have grass in our yard yet, so we clumped around in the dust hiding those eggs for the little boys. It was a strange thing to do, I guess, but we were outside in the sunshine and kept our brothers busy for the afternoon. It is nothing like that for us this year. It isn't warm, we aren't anywhere near friends or family, and my youngest daughter has been sick with a mysterious fever all week. What I wouldn't give for a nice warm, reflective, calm Good Friday. Maybe next year. . .