In this season of Easter eggs and rabbit-shaped chocolate, I am feeling a bit less like the children celebrating Easter in new bonnets than the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

This is my first Easter since the death of my beloved grandmother, and I find myself, like those travelers, still trying to talk about what happened and why instead of noticing the risen savior walking along with me. Like Cleopas, I find myself asking, “Don’t you know what’s going on? A pretty important and amazing person has died, and you’re not even paying attention.” I know I’ve heard that Christ is supposed to have risen, but I’m not always sure I believe it when sometimes it’s hard to feel him in my midst.

My conversion moment came as I broke bread with the cast of the passion play Corpus Christi. The remarkable thing about this play is not its setting (1950s Corpus Christi, Texas) or its characters (who all happen to be gay), but the way in which the cast of thirteen live out and convey the gospel on the stage and off. Their love for each other is palpable, viscerally swelling the heart and shaking the foundations of the soul. These men and women were my reminder that the love of Jesus of Nazareth is still alive, and is reborn with each Easter and each act of love.

I know that I cannot help but live out the discipleship modeled by my grandmother when she was alive, because that love lives in me and has made me who I am. I don’t know what heaven or resurrection look like, but I know that my grandmother is walking with Jesus, who I frequently imagine in the form of Joshua from Corpus Christi.