The Jab

Easter eggs and the memories of many Easters gone by have filled the quiet of my home tonight. As children we celebrated the Christian religious rites in the United church. A member of the Junior and Senior choirs there was always an appropriate and uplifting anthem to sing for the congregation. Many a faithful community woman at the organ, our choir gowns crisp and ironed, we sung our hearts out. At home, we had our Easter baskets with the grass green paper strips nestling coloured candy eggs. Before Easter Sunday we dyed eggs for Easter. Not terribly intricate, but Easter eggs nonetheless. As with many of my memories, finer details have vanished in the frayed edges of these pictures. I do remember the fun of seeing the white shell of an egg turn red, or pink, blue or purple. Purple - now that was fun. Mixing up the colours. Sometimes mixing them too much and just getting a muddy yucky colour was always disappointing. 

This Easter, I am not singing in a choir, nor do I have an Easter basket. I am considering dying some eggs tomorrow in honour of the day and times gone by. Today, it was a different sort of throng I joined. Not a church congregation dressed in their Sunday best. I really do miss the fancy hats and snappy fedoras of the time. Today it was not a church, or even a community hall. There were no choirs singing, no bands playing. In one door and out another. Greeted by a cheerful ‘Top of the mornin’ to you’, the security guard directed me to follow the arrows into a rather cavernous building. My goal was not a chocolate bunny or a community meal. I came prepared with my Saskatchewan Health Card in hand, my mask and wore a short sleeved shirt - for ease of ‘the jab’. When I arrived at the reception desk, I could see I was merely one of a community of seekers of vaccination against our nemesis, the deadly Covid19 virus. New clean masks were provided us by delightful volunteers when we arrived at the reception desk. We maintained recommended distancing with reminders by big orange dots on the floor. As the line I joined moved steadily toward our end goals, men chatted about hockey games, women about children or grandchildren. The time in the lineup was probably five minutes.

White plastic chairs, small tables with all the supplies each nurse would need were set well apart from each other. At each table a registered nurse presided over immunization cards, stickers, needles and syringes, alcohol swabs and of course the vaccines. More cheerful and informative volunteers! That whole process - including the pleasantries we shared - took another five minutes. Then it was following the arrows to a waiting area with chairs properly distanced and the area staffed by more charming volunteers. We were directed to sit quietly for about 15 minutes to ensure no sudden side and untoward effects. When finished, we turned our chair to the side to indicate it needed cleaning. 

This whole Easter time event took less than thirty minutes. But, what about chocolate. There had been no candy eggs, no chocolate bunnies and we were not even given a lollypop after our ‘jab’! So it was home without a treat. But I had a solution to share with my good friend. At my kitchen table, we ate chocolate brownie pudding with ice cream, good hot coffee and topped it off with a good visit full of laughter, cell phone pictures and memories.

“If anyone or anything tries to curse or kill 

the Goodness at the Center of all things, 

it will just keep coming back to life. 

Forever Easter.”

~ David Housholder, The Blackberry Bush