by Christy Feddersen

Created on: January 08, 2011

~Tuna-fish Salad Sandwiches for Easter Dinner~

Today was Easter Sunday. The kids and I had nowhere to go. Everyone was busy doing their own thing. It’s like that for most holidays it seems like. We usually end up celebrating it just the kids and I. The kids don’t mind. They are used to it, but I have to admit that I usually feel very lonely on the holidays. I miss the family things we used to do when I was a kid, back when things were so simple. Sure, sometimes it was just us kids and mom and dad, but those were special times to me. Those were happy family times. I always dreamed that we’d never grow out of that, and that we’d always celebrate each and every holiday by all of us getting together as a family. That never happened, and it makes me very sad.

Not only were the children and I stuck here at home with nowhere to go, we were also extremely broke. It seems to be the story of my life…living paycheck to paycheck…never knowing if I will make it from one to the next. I try not to complain out loud too much because people just get sick of hearing me, but tears streamed down my cheeks as I stood in the kitchen tonight to make the only thing we had left in the house for dinner. Tuna salad sandwiches; that was our Easter dinner. I did not let the kids see me cry, I rarely ever do, but I felt horrible and incompetent inside. I never wanted my life to be this way. I did not plan for it. It just sort of happened, and here we all are.

Through it all, I try to remain grateful for the things we do have. Like each other. At least we will always have that. That is something that has never changed. It's just been 'us' since the death of the children's father in 2003. So, even though there was no candy or decorative Easter baskets, and even though we had nothing to eat but those tuna salad sandwiches for dinner on Easter Sunday, we sat there and ate them together in the living room while watching TV…laughing and having a good time as a family. Suddenly my youngest daughter, with a mouthful of tuna-fish sandwich looked up, and made a funny comment. She says, “Hey, mom! It's okay. At least we’ve got hard boiled eggs in our tuna salad! That’s still kind of Easter-ish, right?” Then my son chimed in and says that we should have hid those sandwiches outside and I should have made them all search for their dinner. Now THAT would have been an Easter they would never forget! We all laughed h hysterically, and for some reason, tuna salad never tasted more delicious.

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