It’s the pageantry of it all that I remember most.

Weeks before Easter, my mother would hit Macy’s, searching through the sale rack for the perfect dress and hat and white gloves and slip and patent leather purse and shoes for me—blue, soft green, maybe pink if the fabric wasn’t too loud. And on that special day, hours after she’d stood in the kitchen whipping up roast ham and macaroni and cheese and collards and candied yams and homemade biscuits for our special Easter Sunday dinner, my mother would wake my brother and I to tell us it was time to get ready. She’d lay out those pretty clothes on my bed and I’d gently pull on my tights and pack my purse with peppermints and stand in the bathroom doorway, watching my mother blot her lipstick and dab a little perfume behind each ear.

Read it at MyBrownBaby!