Spring Flowers Bring...More Snow - MIssoula, Montana

Last week certainly blew through Montana with varied change - our first work-at-home Monday under statewide directive, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake next door in Idaho, sunny days followed by  widespread snowstorms  (with bonus deer bedded down in our townie yard!), a power outage that had us snuggling in for hours ...

And still it was spring, with grape hyacinths and other whatnot blooming and tulip leaves starting up through the snow. Even in the tiniest shred of earth in a crack in a cracked, dingy sidewalk, new life insists its message of hope be seen in brilliant quack-grass green. 
And amidst our global anxious wondering at what happens next, we hold on to hope, share wishes for a blessed Easter, and will say tomorrow, "Christ is risen!" - "He is risen, indeed!".

Easter Joy - Missoula, Montana

Easter morning, for most of my adult life, included a phone call to my grandma to exchange the Paschal Greeting she taught me, this being some of the few words of Ukrainian I still remember. (Other key phrases in my repertoire are standard in every traveler guidebook, I'm sure: 'You're gonna get in trouble!' and 'He/She is crazy', this last having a literal translation along lines of being beat about the head with a sack too much.)

While my life is blessed by loving family who share the thankfulness of all that Easter means, I shall forever miss my grandma's voice across the miles:

Христос воскрес! Воістину воскрес!

(Pronounced:Khrystos voskres! Voyistynu voskres!

Translated: "Christ is risen!" / "He is risen, Indeed!")

But what a beautiful thing to miss.