BUCKING THE SYSTEM: EXPLAINING THE MEANING OF EASTER SO A CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND IT

* Nothing can be more agonizing than explaining a holiday to a child, and especially when that child is a toddler.

Life is clear and matter-of-fact to a toddler. They know what they understand, and they know that understanding is always only another question away.

Sometimes that question is "Why?" There can be no more hated word in the universal language of parenthood than that word out of the mouth of a child.

I know what I'm talking about on this. I've got nearly four years of experience, thanks to my oldest son, Jerry.

Right now, Jerry and I are working on holidays. He knows what a holiday is, but he's trying to grasp why we celebrate them, and of course, the task of explaining them has fallen on me.

This should be easy for me. After all, I make my living using words to explain events and information to regular people without a lot of twists and turns.

But remember, I'm not talking about regular people here. I'm talking about toddlers.

I haven't wasted my time trying to explain holidays like Valentine's Day or Halloween. Truth be known, I don't really understand them, so we just accept those as "candy days."

And then there's New Year's Eve. That's a holiday for grown-ups, I explained when Jerry asked what all the fuss was about.

"Oh," he said, and returned to playing with his fire truck.

Christmas was fairly easy to explain, thanks in large part to our preschool. They emphasized how happy Mary and Joseph and God and everybody was when baby Jesus was born. It helped that one of the teachers was due to have a baby about the same time.

"Mary had a baby just like Miss Nicky is going to, and angels sang, too," said Jerry back in December. As far as I'm concerned, he had it.

Thanksgiving has something to do with Pilgrims and Indians and dinner, but it's a concept too deep for Jerry to master yet.

And then there's Easter. How do you explain the crucifixion and resurrection to a child? What about Palm Sunday and the Passover? He's hearing all of this in church, but these are not easy stories to explain.

Sure I could leave it alone for now, but I'm not comfortable allowing Jerry's Easter to be dominated by images of the Easter bunny and eggs and candy.

I took a crack at explaining Easter to Jerry during a recent ride in the car.

"Jerry, do you know why we celebrate Easter?" I asked.

"No. Why?" he asked. Bad start.

"Jesus did something really nice for us, so on Easter we say thank you," I said, hoping -- praying, actually -- that the explanation would suffice.

It didn't.

"What did he do?" Jerry asked.

Now I'm stuck. Do I tell the story of the crucifixion, do I try to explain why the bad men didn't like Jesus, or what?

Finally, in desperation, I grasped at a hymn we sing at church that Jerry enjoys.

"Remember that song 'He arose, he arose, he arose from the dead?'" I asked.

"Yeah, I like that song, Mommy."

"Well, that's what Jesus did. He arose."

I'm holding my breath now. Will it work?

"Oh. Well, that was nice of him, wasn't it, Mommy?"

And with that, Jerry started fighting with PJ over the French fries from their shared Happy Meal.

Hallelujah, I've been redeemed!

At least, until Memorial Day comes around. Maybe I'll just buy a bag of candy and leave it at that.

Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.