Easter Egg Hunts

In only a few weeks it will be Easter Sunday, an important church holy day, but one that brings back memories of growing up among a very ecumenical neighborhood.

We were what my mother referred to as lapsed Episcopalians, meaning she was a Baptist who had joined my father’s church, which he no long attended and, consequently, neither did she. Aunt Jo and Uncle Ralph, really just our next door neighbors, were Methodists, or she was and he was another one of the lapsed. The Weber’s were Presbyterians and the Abramowitz’s were Jewish. In fact, he was the Rabbi for one of the local synagogues. All around us were the Catholics whose huge families did not seem to have anyone labeled, “lapsed.” We all, the children that is, lived in awe of each other’s holidays when the ones celebrating could stand outside the school fence and talk to the ones inside whose freedom was still curtailed that day.

Except for Easter. Easter was always on Sunday and everyone had Easter egg hunts. Even Rabbi Abramowitz’s children hunted for Easter eggs. According to him, who didn’t believe in six foot white rabbits who hid eggs all over town?

I could barely sleep, I was so excited planning how I would dye my share of the hard boiled eggs my father always laid out on a big white tea towel. Then on Easter morning we had to wait for our parents to get up before the mad scramble to find what was hidden around the house. I was good at it.

First finding all the eggs I had personally dyed, then looking for that special one, the one that wasn’t hard boiled, but was so exquisite I put it off to the very end. Tickled to death to see that gorgeous egg flash before my eyes in some unexpected place, I would shout with glee and snatch it up to hide away in my basket. Of course I never ate it, no matter how beautiful and sweet it was.

Over the course of the next week I would eat the hard boiled eggs, but I never ate the candy ones. I played with them, made nests for them in my basket and pretended they were baby chicks and eggs and I was the mother. Until, finally, one day, they would all be gone. No more little Easter eggs to feed and spank and put to bed, not even the big beautiful one, just empty baskets stacked inside each other on the dining room table, waiting to be put away until next Easter.

Whenever I see some unexpected treasure flash out of nowhere into the corner of my eye, I am reminded of all the laughter and excitement of those long ago days.