Easter Saturday is a day that lives forever in my mind, no matter what the calendar date might be.  Easter Saturday was the day my life changed forever, as did that of my mom.  Our day began like many Saturdays – a trip to Dr. Kaplan, the podiatrist, then a few errands around town, then back home.  Except, that day we didn’t quite get all the errands done.  I dropped my mom off at home, then went out to the bank and to the police station to echo my neighbor Marge’s complaints about the neighbor’s pit bull and his incessant barking.  We’d make several phone complaints but I wanted to put in an appearance at the police station.  I wasn’t gone but one hour but returned home to find my mom in the kitchen complaining of dizziness and saying she didn’t feel well.  She said she wanted to go lie down and held onto my arm with a death grip as we slowly walked to her bedroom.  She got into bed, face down, and never moved for hours.  I was petrified and kept waking her up and she got angry with me.  She slept through the evening, then overnight and didn’t awaken until mid-day Easter Sunday.  We spoke a little and she went back to sleep.  When I finally convinced her to go to the E.R. on Monday afternoon, after nine hours of tests to determine the cause of her dizziness, the doctors proclaimed my mom was merely dehydrated…I’ve never accepted this diagnosis and do not to this day.  Sadly, Easter Saturday and the dizziness that overtook my mom that day was just the beginning of a decline in her health and took us through nearly a year of ups and downs and seemingly new medical maladies before her passing on January 31, 2010.  So Easter Saturday – April 11, 2009 – will live in my mind always and will taint the Easter holiday for me forevermore.  I thought about the day and its aftermath as I walked this morning and that day’s events, forever playing in my mind, tainted the beauty of this pretty Spring day.  I also reflected on other deaths that occurred during the Easter holiday, thinking that although the calendar date is not the same, the Easter holiday will forever bring back the sad event to these respective families.  Although I was not close to my grandfather, he died on Easter weekend 1969.  The law firm where I worked lost a senior partner, Steve Fleming, to suicide in 1998.  He was despondent over an impending divorce and had just returned from taking his two children on a ski vacation.  He dropped his kids at his former home and went to his apartment and hung himself.  His funeral was on Easter Saturday, a gloriously beautiful, bright and sunny day where the entire office personnel gathered, still in disbelief, to “send him off”.  My neighbor Marge lost her son Keith Aubin suddenly two years ago on Good Friday.  My co-worker Dan Helton lost his father on Maundy Thursday and the funeral was on Easter Monday last year.  A high school chum, who is now a priest at St. Joseph’s parish in Trenton, lost his mom this past Wednesday.   The 13-year-old boy, Tyler Nichols, who took his own life barely a week ago has been in my thoughts since the tragic event.  I went onto the funeral home’s website to see a picture of this young boy after watching a tribute video created by his peers called “Fly High Ty” on the local newspaper’s website.  The video was very moving as was the slideshow created by the funeral home.  It showed a smiling and very happy child from birth to his pre-teen years.  What went so horribly wrong?  Perhaps I’ve dwelled on Tyler Nichol’s death because the morning that he chose to end his young life, I happened to be in Southgate near the school.  Out of nowhere came a series of screeching sirens, … then a helicopter, all indicating to me a nearby police presence.  I clicked on the radio to check the news as I travelled through the city of Southgate to hear the horrible breaking story.  Perhaps I am affected by Tyler’s suicide by shooting himself in the head because, sadly, over Easter break in my senior year, I lost a classmate, Tom Mlosek, to suicide.  Tom also committed suicide by putting a gun to his head.  Forty years ago, teenage suicide was unheard of.  Tom was only eighteen years old.  I still recall our teacher telling us what happened on our first day back to school after the Easter holiday.  She broke down twice and we all were openly crying.  I had Tom in several of my classes, including homeroom, where we sat at round tables in the cafeteria.  I sat across from him every school day and we laughed and joked and who would have known such dark thoughts were lurking in his head?  I was devastated.  I still remember Tom to this day forty years later.  Alas, reflections and yes, a few pensive pauses, on this day are okay to do now and then.  They make you stronger.  Blessings to everyone ~~~ to those who are living and those who are gone from us, often too soon.