Lori Borgman

When the kids were growing up, we had a giant weeping willow tree in the backyard. It was a magnificent specimen with long, graceful branches that swayed in the breeze.

It was also a magnificent mess. Not only did it dance in the wind, it seemed the tree shed constantly—every day, every week, every month of the year.

To add insult to injury, every wispy branch that didn’t shed slapped you in the face with its serrated leaves when you passed by.

Being that the tree left a constant mess in the yard, when the kids were sassy or needed some consequences, we would send them outside to pick up willow branches. This would sometimes keep them busy for days and weeks at a time.

It was win-win, a very good system until the willow began to rot and we had the tree taken down. The trunk and branches were even bigger on the ground than they were in the sky. We rented a wood splitter and our son split the salvageable wood. This kept him busy the entire summer between his freshman and sophomore year in college.

A few years ago, we lost two maples due to age (theirs not ours). Needing more shade, we planted a Heritage River Birch. Even though a river birch can sell itself on good looks and beautiful bark alone, the tag sealed the deal: “This charming tree attracts songbirds and butterflies, while its lush canopy offers cool shade, making it an excellent choice.”

What the description neglected to say is that a river birch is merely a weeping willow in disguise.

The problem now is that all the kids are grown and gone. You don’t tell your adult children, who are married and raising children of their own, to get outside and pick up sticks.

We know because we tried.

The two of us are now the ones outside picking up twigs and sticks, bending from the waist, the knees, the left side and the right side, telling each other this qualifies as aerobics.

In a recent email exchange with a reader, she mentioned that her mother used to pay her kids a penny for every stick they picked up from her yard. She said her mother’s yard was always full of grandkids trying to “make a buck” picking up sticks.

Interesting idea. But having filled another large trash bag with fallen birch twigs in under an hour, and calculating for inflation, we’re not sure we have enough set aside for retirement to cover that amount.

Beauty comes with a price and we’re now the ones paying for it.

On a cold spring day years ago, young neighbor children found a small, dead bunny in their yard. They ran inside to tell their mother about the discovery. She went outside with the children to view the pitiful sight.

When the woman’s husband came home that evening, unbeknown to the children, he disposed of the bunny. The next day, the children went outside and discovered the dead bunny was gone. They rushed inside to ask their mother what could have happened.

She told them the bunny had been resurrected.

My friend saw the circumstances as a teachable moment for Easter.

For the record, the children all grew up to be healthy well-adjusted adults who are productive members of society.

For several hundred years following the life of Christ, the major holiday on the Christian calendar was Easter. In our times, that is flipped.

Last year, Christmas netted 972 billion in sales. Easter netted 22 billion, which is paltry in comparison but enough to generate tons of chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps.

Christmas is buoyed not only by commercialism, but by the tender story of a baby born in a manger to a humble peasant couple. Easter is a harder and more gruesome story to teach, let alone market.

Though intense and frightening, the lessons of Easter are relevant for all ages. Suffering and sorrow touch every one of us. Even children. Who doesn’t remember tears shed over the death of a beloved pet? Grief and sorrow over the death of a family member or friend can feel unbearable.

In the biblical account, when Jesus was crucified, dead and buried, his friends and followers were crushed to the brink of despair. When Jesus died, their hope died as well.

After they laid his body in the tomb and the stone was rolled in front of it, they all sheltered together. Together in times of sorrow helps. As hopeless as things seemed, the darkness did not swallow them whole, though they may have wished it would.

On the Sunday after Jesus died, Mary Magdalene, a friend and follower who witnessed the crucifixion, went to the tomb in the early morning. The rock had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. As she stood bewildered and sobbing, Jesus appeared to her. She ran to tell the others the good news that Christ had risen from the dead and was alive. This is the origin of “good news.”

When the ever-lengthening Christmas season is over, all the gift-giving and merry-making drawn to a close, how do people often feel? Many experience sadness and melancholy. The clinical name for that is post-Christmas blues.

When Easter is over, people most often feel refreshed and joyful, imbued with the hope of new life and rebirth. When Holy Week appears darkest, light pierces the clouds. Christmas may net the most attention and money, but Christmas and Easter are integral parts of the same narrative. Christmas sets the stage—Easter is “the rest of the story.”

There are two kinds of people in this world: Do-It-Yourself people and Hire Someone to Do-It-For-You people. Wisdom is knowing which category you fall into.We are Do-It-Yourself people. Unless it involves plumbing. Then we are Hire-Someone-to-Do-It-For-Us people.

Experience has taught us that nearly every home plumbing project can and will go wrong.

There is yet a subcategory to mention: Get-Someone-in-the-Family-to-Do-It.

You must be sensitive navigating this route, as you can wear out your welcome. We try to rotate the jobs we need done among capable family members. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel slighted.

We had a cracked bathroom sink that needed replacing recently. I mentioned the eye-popping estimates we received from two plumbing companies to our son, who built the house his family lives in.

“Don’t pay someone to do that,” he said. “I can do it for you.”

“No, no,” I said. (Yes! That’s a terrific idea!)

“When would you like me to come up?”

“Oh, you’re so busy!” (Next weekend would be good.)

“How’s Saturday?” he asks.

“I think that works.” (“He’s coming!” I mouth to the husband. We jump up and down and fist bump.)

“You’ll need to get a new sink,” he says.

“Good idea. One of the plumbers who gave an estimate told us what size to get,” I say. (On order as we speak.)

“Bring the crew,” I say. (There are lots more projects to do!)

Our son and his wife came, along with their five kids, who all went directly from potty training to power tools.

When our son removed the old sink, the metal pipe broke in his hands. This is what you expect of plumbing projects.

Our daughter-in-law made the first run to the hardware store.

An hour later, remains of the old pipe had been removed and replaced, the new faucet had been installed, the cracked sink was gone and one of the boy’s heads was popping up through the opening for the sink.

A short while later our son appeared and said, “The sink doesn’t fit. It’s too small.”

This was not a surprise. We expect things to go wrong. Plus, it could have been a whole lot worse. He could have said the water valve broke, water is flooding the upstairs bathroom and pouring through the ceiling.

We wouldn’t even have raised an eyebrow. We would have calmly said, “We expected as much. Want some coffee?”

Or, he could have said the wet drywall is caving, insulation is soaked and the water main in the front yard is spewing like Old Faithful.

This would not have been surprising either. We would have said, “Oh well, maybe we’ll just move. Here, have some banana bread.”

He wanted to come back a week later and finish the job, but we said no and backed it up. We called a professional plumber. Expensive? Yes.

But the house is still standing, and so is the family.

I was one of the first to complete the family NCAA Final Four bracket this year. There’s not a chance I’ll win and I’m good with that.

Our son-in-law started the family bracket challenge, which includes his side of the family and our side, 15 years ago.

His side of the family loves sports. His dad even refereed for years.

When you love sports, you make intelligent bracket picks. When you simply like sports, making picks is like throwing pasta against the wall to see what sticks.

I throw pasta. Spaghetti, rotini, lasagna, all of it.

Here’s the kicker—I’ve somehow won the bracket twice.

I’m not sure how I won, although my husband follows a lot of sports and maybe I unconsciously gleaned a few things from him. Sure, blame the husband.

Once again, I have been reviewing my methods for guiding picks.

The Color Method involves pulling up a bracket list of the teams and selecting winners based on school colors. I choose according to color seasons—this is a palette of colors every woman knows she wears well. Summer and spring colors contain a lot yellows. I cannot wear yellow. I am a winter: black, white, jade, ruby, sapphire—all the gemstones. Teams with yellow are out.

Another strategy is the Vacation Pick. If I’ve been to the team’s state and had an enjoyable time, the team advances. Michigan and Tennessee are frequent picks.

There’s also the Our Kids and Our Money tactic. If any of our kids attended a school in the playoffs, the school automatically advances.

The Home Sweet Home method tips the ball to a team if any member of our family has ever lived there. This puts Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and New Jersey in the pool.

Perhaps the most popular method is the Stuffie Pick. Teams are chosen based on whether a mascot would make a cuddly stuffie. We still have grands clinging to stuffies. The College of William and Mary’s griffin, a mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, is an obvious no. Nor do bird mascots with sharp beaks have a high cuddly quotient. Go ahead, call “fowl” but it’s true. On the other hand, South Dakota’s Jack the Jackrabbit with big floppy ears is a slam dunk.

This year, I picked Louisville to go all the way to the Final Four. We were there recently with my brother and his wife. We stayed at the Brown Hotel, wandered through an architectural salvage place that spanned two blocks, ate breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall diner frequented by jockeys and took an amazing distillery tour. My gut told me Louisville was a win.

Louisville was out in the first round.

Oh, the madness of it all.

I can’t call heads or tails on whether we should stop minting the penny. There are two sides to every coin, right?

Zinc and copper used to make a penny are worth almost four times the value of the coin. Bottom line: the penny is not cost-efficient. I empathize. Some days I’m not terribly cost-efficient either.

It’s hard to imagine life without pennies. Stale mints and wadded up receipts in the bottom of my purse all alone with no pennies? Ketchup packets, napkins and insurance cards crammed in the glove box with no pennies?

What about the children? What about all the piggy banks and penny banks? Then again, most of those children probably already have Venmo accounts.

Penny gumball machines faded into the past long ago. They were simple fun—dropping in a penny, turning the knob and hearing a gumball rattle down the chute.

A long time ago, a shiny penny was a decent bribe for a kid. I suppose now it would take something along the lines of a ten or twenty.

Not to carbon date myself, but I put pennies in my penny loafers as a girl. You can’t size up to a nickel in a penny loafer, you’d have to size down. The term “dime loafers” has no ring to it whatsoever.

Ask Canada (if they’re still speaking to us) what happens to prices when pennies are discontinued. Most prices were rounded up when our neighbors to the north discontinued pennies more than a decade ago. Without pennies, the cost of everything must end in a five or a zero. So much for “every penny counts.”

Would a “penny for your thoughts” retain any value? Would it remain a question of endearment or become an insult?

What happens to all the penny pinchers? Do they become plain old misers?

If the penny goes, will all the penny riddles grandkids lob our way disappear as well?

What is a penny’s favorite ice cream? Mint.

In the final analysis, we tilt pro-penny as evidenced by the vintage 5-gallon glass jar in the entryway that has accumulated pennies for years.

Nearly every child that has passed through has loved dropping pennies in, hearing the clink and seeing where they fall.

Estimates on how many pennies are in circulation in the U.S. range from 100 billion to 200 billion or more. The humble penny will not disappear anytime soon.

Maybe it is time for change.

Now, for the really bad news: It costs nearly 14 cents to make a nickel.