My Easter pity party

It’s been a week now, in which I spent a lot of time throwing a pity party that no one came to except me. I got sick eight days ago. Just a cold, but one of those ridiculous colds that makes you feel like your head is really a watermelon that threatens to topple you with its excessive weight at any moment.

Jonathan had a work deadline, and I simply could not deal with the also-sick boys, so we called my mom to come help. She very kindly came down and did everything that needed doing, but when she left, the boys and I were still sick.

So on Easter Day it was just the four of us home alone. I put on a happy face and watched them do their egg hunt and play delightedly with the Legos that the (super cool) Easter Bunny had brought them, but when they went to bed, I sat down and cried. It increased my watermelon head by two sizes, of course, but the tears came anyway.

You see, I come from a big family. Really big. Like my mom was the oldest of seven, big. And they still have family parties ALL the time. And I miss those parties almost all of the time. I live too far away to fly back to Michigan easily or often, so I go home twice a year and I spend all the rest of the days looking at pictures on our family site and crying. Yes, I really do. We’ve lived here for six and a half years now, and I still cry on every stupid holiday because I miss my family.

My sister lives two hours north, and my parents moved out here a year and a half ago, so now a (very small) subset of my family gets together and we do it up as much as we can without the other fifty people. It makes the day more bearable, and the post-Skype tears are usually pretty short-lived.

This Easter was extra-special because we were also celebrating my sister’s birthday and my nephew’s. There was ice cream cake to be had, people, and I was THERE.

Except that I couldn’t be, because three of us had this Titanic-sized cold. So this Easter I missed not one but two family parties. I missed out on two friend invitations, too, because I didn’t think they were inviting our germs to their houses.

Jonathan held my hand while I cried and told me he was sorry, but he doesn’t really get it. He comes from a family of three, so frankly our house of four is already big in his world. His parents didn’t celebrate any holidays, really, so he doesn’t get that either.

So what I wanted to do was yell at him for the hundredth time that what the hell does he know about it anyway? But I didn’t, because I’m trying not to hold it against him that his family was small and holiday-less. I’m filing it under Things He Can’t Change, and accepting whatever sympathy I can get.

It’s two days later, and I’m finally wrapping up the pity party. But this isn’t what I wanted, for myself or for my boys. I cannot help but want them to have the happy, family-filled childhood that I had growing up. When I’m reminded that they don’t have it, I start looking for the nearest Exit From This Life of Living Far Away. The grass is always greener in Michigan, apparently, even if we live in the Evergreen State.

Yet I also know, deep in my heart, that having two parents with good jobs is important. I know that having their cousins just a drive away is right. It may not really be better anywhere but here.

But every holiday? It sure feels like it would be.

P.S. I faked it as well as I could, and I think the boys had fun. We even colored eggs in between coughs and nose wipes. Someone tried to drink the egg dye, though, so the other someone got to do all the rest.

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