I started the title for this and typed “Easter 2016.” Not sure where that came from — a typo or a slip of the memory. Easter in 2016 looked like this:

It was rainy, cold. The Easter egg hunt was amusing, to say the least. Still, there was continuity with every other Easter: the same friends were there, probably the same food was there, and I had drinks and cigars with one of the fellows in the carport.

This year, the carport is gone — still in the midst of its transformation, it’s really nothing. Not a carport; not a bedroom.

The same friends are in the area, but new family obligations made it impossible to have our traditional Easter party. We had a little egg hunt yesterday,

and had a little mini-pre-Easter party:

Things change, and sometimes so unexpectedly and suddenly that it’s not until days, weeks, or even months have passed that the contours of that change, the depth of the the change, is clear. A moment lacking in lucidity, a trip to the hospital, and almost five months later, the magnitude of the change — for everyone, for some more than others — becomes clear.

Who knew how much things would change over this winter? Looking back, as we near the end of this first stage, it seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago when it all started; looking back, as the end of this first stage seems eternally out of our grasp, it seems like it was a couple of years ago.

Today, we went to the park. The depth of that change — a walk in the park Easter afternoon compared to what Easter has always been for us — is a metaphor for the change itself. Was it better than what we usually do? Not really. Was it worse? Not really. Just different.