No backyard Easter lamb, but that’s good news

This is the second Easter in a row that we won’t be roasting a lamb over coals.

But I’m not depressed about it this year. Last year, I was depressed. Not this year.

Sunday is Holy Easter for Orthodox Christians, for Ethiopians, Serbians, Russians, Palestinians, Armenians, Romanians, Greeks and many others. Western Christians celebrated weeks ago.

We all celebrate the resurrection of Christ, the rabbi from Nazareth, the Lamb of God.

Is this column too religious for you? Oh, well, pardon me, but it’s Easter. It’s not about peeps or the red eggs we Greeks crack on Sunday in our bizarre egg-cracking game. It’s Easter, not Earth Day.

We usually gather and roast a lamb at our home with family and friends. My sons have been out with me on Easter mornings for years, and they’ll carry on the tradition. I suppose I won’t forget when I get back to it. It might be just like riding a bicycle.

But for now, this Sunday marks two years in a row that I won’t smell of smoke. No glasses of ouzo in the sun (or rain) in the morning as the lamb begins that five-hour turn over coals.

I won’t be assaulting the neighbors, those wireless speakers blaring out loud mountain clarinets and gravel-voiced men singing of fighting Turks and of blood feuds in the rocky hills of the old country.

And no readers pulling up in their cars for a drink and a taste. No cousins picking at the tasty, lemony skin with many experts who’ve never done it telling me I’m doing it all wrong.

No houseful of people. No squabbling between Betty and me about what takes precedence, the side dishes or the lamb. The lamb always wins.

So, fill your plates with the sides and then come out to get the lamb. Don’t forget the grilled lemon and yogurt on the rice, pastitsio, spanakopita, and another glass of wine, then another.

Leave room for the galaktoboureko, coffee, Metaxa and perhaps a fine maduro cigar.

Those quiet, silent moments alone as you start the lamb turning are a time for meditation. The turning of the lamb is hypnotic, as is the hum of the electric motor doing the work, and tending of the coals so the fire won’t get too hot or too low.

It is a time of reflection on the importance of ancient sacrifice, the lamb of Abraham, the spits turning on the beaches of Troy, and of Passover.

The Aramaic and Hebrew word for Passover is “Pesach.” The Greek word for Easter is “Pascha.”

Pesach, Pascha, Easter. Last year Easter was about sorrow and isolation. In Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was closed.

And in America as the pandemic grew, churches were closed by government fiat. Only a few fought back as all should have.

The virus largely spared the young and the healthy. But we all gave up our liberty, in a bargain with St. Fauci, the secular high priest of the religion of fear.

Call me a heretic, but I have it on excellent authority that if you’re vaccinated, you may stand with those you love, a glass of ouzo in your hand, spit roasting a lamb over coals on Easter Sunday, and show your face to the sun.

We made plans to do it again, this Sunday, but my brother Peter got the news from the nursing home where our mom has been. It was great news.

“They’ll let her out for a couple hours on Sunday, but only a couple, so how about we get together at a restaurant?” he said.

Actually, they’ll allow her out for one hour, but it’s a Greek restaurant near her nursing home and in Greek People Time, that’s really two hours.

Who wants to waste time driving?

They take good care of her there and are extremely careful. Up until quite recently, we could only see her through glass walls. Now with vaccines, they’re still careful, with limited visits.

But she’s 90. She’s survived a stroke, and she needs to be with us, to see her grandchildren, to hug them, to touch them and us.

All across the world, nursing home residents have been tortured by the isolation. How many have died, aching of loneliness? Whenever I’d see headlines about the elderly and isolation, I couldn’t read the story. I kept seeing my mother’s face. Perhaps you’ve felt the same way.

Our family is not alone in this. And I hope that those of you with loved ones in nursing homes have been able to renew the physical contact.

To see her smile. To hold her. To see her laugh and raise a glass, make a joke.

She might compare my roast lamb to the restaurant’s roast lamb and say mine is better. I hope so. But these days she says exactly what’s on her mind.

Being together is the only thing. We hope that next year, when things open up, we can bring her home for a visit. She can stand out there for a bit around the coals, the lamb, and tell us family stories of Easters long past, when my dad roasted the lamb and we were kids. She’ll probably tell those stories on Sunday.

Because love is the only thing. The rabbi from Nazareth understood this. He loved all of us. Christos Anesti! Christ is risen! Happy Easter.