Bright Morning Stars Are Rising

As of 7p this evening, we are back from Amsterdam here in Hannover until Saturday when we make our 4-hour drive, moving our accumulated Hannover stuff to Amsterdam. But I'll talk about that on Saturday before we leave.

For right now, I want to talk about Easter and its memories for me.

The Wednesday before Easter in 1995 was April 12, the day Dad died. The day before Easter in 1997 was March 29, the day Mom died. On February 24th of 1996, in between those two years, my brother Bennett died. (Most of you already know this from when I memorialized them last year.)

Hold that thought.

The other day on the treadmill, I was listening to Walela sing Bright Morning Stars are Rising:

(Chorus)
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
And Day is breaking in my soul.

Now listen to the (only!) 3 stanzas they sing:

Oh where are our dear fathers,
Oh where are our dear fathers,
They're on the mountain praying,
And day is breaking in my soul.

Carl Clarence Hart
January 2, 1917 - April 12, 1995

Oh where are our dear brothers,
Oh where are our dear brothers,
They're off to war a-fighting,
And day is breaking in my soul.

Bennett Williams Hart
June 28, 1948 - February 24, 1996
Oh where are our dear mothers,
Oh where are our dear mothers,
They're off to Heaven shouting,
And day is breaking in my soul.

Barbara Nelson Bennett Hart
June 26, 1916 - March 29, 1997

As I'm sure you can imagine, Easter now always has a deeper death/resurrection meaning for me and my sibs. But this year, even more so....

Bright morning stars are rising,
And day is breaking in my soul.

March Madness

HA! April Fools. Sort of, that is. It's no longer March, of course, and it's not April 1, but it IS still March Madness, when it comes to basketball. Tonight is the Men's Final here in Atlanta between Ohio State and Florida; tomorrow night in Cleveland is the Women's Final between Rutgers and Tennessee.

Last year at this time, I showed this same basketball hoop in a cul-de-sac near our house. This pic today is one I took a week ago. Can you believe it? They are almost exactly the same, except for the sky. That tells me it's glory days have long gone by!

While all this madness carries on (and Donica is in the thick of it, because she used to be a guard in high school, remember?), we both fly to Amsterdam today and then to Hannover on Wednesday evening. I'll tell you more about this trip later but this week we'll be packing up our odds-n-ends at the Hannover apartment for a home-away-from-home move to Amsterdam on Saturday before Easter. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, we'll miss tonight's men's final while on the airplane. The women's game tomorrow night--maybe we'll both get up early to watch it (4:21a Amsterdam time)! It'll be hard to know who to root for!