How to Make Your Own Natural Easter Egg Dye while also Struggling with Doubt - in 14 easy steps!

1) Find a recipe for all-natural dyes using any of the bajillion links on Pinterest. Choose whichever recipe you can find quickly before your demanding children distract you from your quest with an urgent need. (I used this one from kitchn.com. Because it was the first one that popped up in my Google search.)

2) Stop by the store to get an assortment of vegetables to make dyes (assuming you weren't able to grow and harvest all your own organic vegetables in your backyard).

3) Gather every single pot or lidded pan that you own and boil every drop of water you can find. Boil all your farm fresh brown and green eggs. (I used eggs from Green Gate Family Farm located in Wheatland, Missouri.) Don't watch the pot.

4) Start peeling, chopping, shredding. Get your first batch of dye material onto the stove top (and fast since you'll have to do this again to make 3 more colors. Since apparently you only have 3 pots and pans with lids).


5) Find an activity for your children to keep them busy while your dyes are cooking (and while you figure out what in the sam hill to do with 4 whole, peeled onions and half a cabbage). May I suggest the following activity for your kids: dying Easter eggs with artificial colors from PAAS. Why not a bit of nostalgia, right? You know you love it - that octagon-shaped bendable egg tool, those little tablets (especially that orange tablet that strangely makes green dye). Memories! I know, I know. It's artificial. (Gasp!) But isn't that part of growing up? Realizing just how much artifice there is around you? And looking for something a little more real even while you hold on to your past because it's simple and comforting?

6) Go ahead and get factory farm eggs for the PAAS project - you know - the white eggs sold in grocery stores that come from undisclosed locations.

7) Trade some of your brown eggs for some of the white eggs from your children's batch - that way you can really test both the artificial and the natural dyes. Kids always love a good experiment.

8) Marvel at how little time the artificial dye project takes while you are using your bare hands to wring "blue" dye from a hot wad of boiled purple cabbage.

9) Hustle all your eggs (brown and white) into their little dye baths in mason jars. Because seriously - what else would you use for a project like this. And also because if you're interested in natural dyes you probably already have a supply of mason jars that multiplies constantly in your cabinets (not unlike bunnies - Easter bunnies, perhaps). Leave the bathing eggs in the fridge for hours on end.

10) Spend some time while you wait thinking about the enormity of the Easter message and about how joyous Easter is supposed to be but also recognizing how sometimes Easter arrives in a cloud of bad news and about how sometimes that joy doesn't come out just right.

11) Check on the natural eggs and see how strange and weak their colors are compared to the bright, confident, unwavering, familiar pinks and blues, etc. of the PAAS project. Put the natural ones back in the fridge for more dye bathing. Keep trying, okay? Don't give up!

12) Wait a few more hours for things to sink in (including the colors). Look to some deep thinkers while you process what Easter means for someone like you. (I used some work by Rachel Held Evans whose chapter on Easter in Searching for Sunday is spot-on perfect.)

13) Unveil the naturally dyed eggs at last - remark on how well the colors actually worked! Combine these eggs with their artificially dyed friends and be amazed at what a rich array of character this motley crew exhibits - even though, quite frankly, none of it looks like the pictures on the Pinterest board or the PAAS packaging. Notice how downright lovely your family's Easter eggs look - irregularities and all.

14) Remember that even if things don't turn out exactly as expected, there is joy to embrace and beauty to behold and so much to be grateful for. And you'd better do that whenever and wherever you can.

Happy Easter. 

Mema

Me and Mema

This is me and Mema last Saturday. She passed away peacefully this morning. She was 93. 

At times like these, thoughts turn to the afterlife. So many people seem so certain about what happens to you after you die. Some are certain that they DO know what happens. Some are certain that they don't know what happens. I have no idea what will happen to YOU when YOU die. But I will tell you what will happen to me...

When I die, my first stop will be Mema's house on the corner of 45th street. I will park by the big chain link gate at the back. There will be a dog in the yard, and it will be Daisy who will be as happy to see me in the afterlife as she is every night when I come home in this life. There will be roses on the trellises - tons of them. I'll go through the back door of the house and Jetta and Mema will be there in the tiny kitchen. It will not be a special occasion or a big day or a triumphant reunion. It will be a Wednesday. The dinner on the stove will be simple. Chicken and Dumplings or Spaghetti. We'll drink Lipton iced tea and eat chocolate chip cookies made with the recipe on the side of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip package. We will watch Wheel of Fortune. And we will be so glad to see each other. 

Rest in peace, Mema. 

A Tornado, a Birthday, and a Funeral

My Aunt Jetta

We went to OKC recently to attend my aunt's funeral; the weekend before we'd gone to celebrate my grandmother's birthday (early) and to see my aunt Jetta who was very sick. She had been diagnosed with late stage cancer just after Easter. We had no idea how rapidly she'd decline. She only had one cycle of chemo that lasted just three weeks. She died before her hair even had a chance to fall out. 

I had no idea that Memorial Day weekend I was saying goodbye for the last time. That weekend she said no more than five words to me, which in and of itself was a feat. She was virtually non-communicative towards the end. That weekend when I reached out to her she responded, whispering "Thank You," "Love you," and "Pretty," (that last one was her acknowledgement of the bouquet of flowers I brought her from Mema's garden.) I am grateful for the visit I had made earlier in May when she was doing a little bit better and when I brought her a birthday gift and a card, which I know she treasured; she wouldn't even let my mom throw away the envelope that her birthday card came in. She passed away peacefully on Wednesday morning, May 29.

I struggled with how to tell Julia that Jetta passed away. She knew something was up ("Jetta doesn't feel good.") and had already asked some poignant questions (“Who hurt Jetta?”). But she is too young to understand death. When we went back for the funeral, I worried that Julia would inquire after Jetta or want to know why we were all sad. She IS in the “Why?” phase, after all. We used our best euphemisms and our simplest language and I think in some fundamental way, she understood just enough. The truth is that her child-like view of it all brought some levity that I found to be refreshing in the most stifling parts of the mourning process: “She’s pink!” (Julia said, at the funeral home where there was a pink light shining on the body) and “Jetta has a new bed!” (after the viewing) and “Is Jetta hiding?” (at the graveside service).

In many ways I was helping myself understand death as much as I was helping Julia. This was the first death in the inner circle of my mom’s family since the year I was born. I’ve never had to face it so forthrightly. I questioned what it all meant each step of the way.

The night of the viewing of the body, there was a big storm brewing. Being tried and true Oklahomans, we all knew something big was coming. You could just feel it in the air. (Also, we were watching the news and the meteorologists said something big was coming.) We proceeded with the evening’s plan nonetheless; my mom took Mema to the funeral home and many other folks arrived. Sergio and I came with the girls and were able to have our moment to say “Goodbye” and “We love you, Jetta.” Before long the storm had progressed and we realized we needed to take cover. We hustled out of the funeral home and piled into our caravan of cars as the newscasters on the radios advised us all to take shelter. We were headed across the street to go into the basement of the church. It felt so weird to leave Jetta behind.

The viewing of the body is peculiar. We know in our heads what has happened, that our loved one has died, but our hearts want to believe that maybe it’s not true. Our hearts want to believe the way Julia probably believed - that Jetta was just asleep. It certainly looked that way. She looked beautiful (no small feat after her illness) -- and pink, even! -- as though she were just resting for a moment. But let me tell you - nothing drives home the reality of your loved one’s condition like having to leave her behind in the funeral home while the rest of the family takes cover from a tornado.

Oh and did I mention that this was my grandmother’s 92nd birthday? What a strange way to spend your birthday. That night, Mema powered through the visitation and the tornado, broken heart and all. We all even managed to share some cake together and reflect on those 92 years. But it was far from a happy birthday. We found out later that the tornado that came through that night was the widest tornado ever recorded in US history - about 2.5 miles. The wide-reaching path of destruction was an apt metaphor for the ripple effects of Jetta's death - of anyone's death, I am sure. It has both a broad (for many) and a personal (for each of us) impact. However, no one felt Jetta's death quite the way Mema did. As she told me later on, tearfully, at the graveside service, "It just cuts so deep."

The next morning the sky was clear and beautiful. The funeral for Jetta was perfect; she would have loved it, I am sure. Family came to town and my parents' house was full of warmth and full of flowers and full of food. There was an amazing outpouring of support from my parents' friends and co-workers, my aunt's friends and co-workers, my friends - more generous that you could imagine. If quantities of food delivered to the bereaved are any indication of how well someone was liked, then my aunt was extremely well loved. The remainder of the weekend was part hustle and bustle of family gathering and part quiet reflection. And lots and lots of emotion.

Jetta was a giver of great gifts, a baker of amazing birthday cakes, and a taker of great photos. She was patriotic - didn't care who you voted for in any election just so long as you voted. And she'd give you The Raised Eyebrow of Consternation if you didn't. She was a loyal Hallmark Gold Crown shopper and invested a lot of time in finding the right gift. She was a bit of a wallflower. She was full of tact. She never said an unkind word. She loved iced tea. 

It is so hard to believe she’s gone. We are all better off for having had her in our life. We miss her so much.

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.” - Thomas Jefferson

(a quotation framed and hung on the wall at Jetta's house)