By: Lora Wimsatt
The little ones are not sure what’s going on or what is expected of them. Their tiny feet step tentatively through the grass of the back yard, a yard that is still mostly brown but there are a few patches of bright green grass, including a few bunches that are already tall enough for mowing.
My granddaughters have been given baskets to carry. Multi-colored strands woven together – what is that stuff? Bamboo? Wicker? – and the inside is fluffy with shiny shreds of plastic, artificial grass, in this case, pink. Pink for girls.
The girls – also dressed mostly in pink – wander about, herded gently by the guiding hand of their mothers or lured by Papaw as he points toward the shadow of the forsythia bush.
“Pick it up! Pick it up!”
That’s the daddies, ever competitive, urging their little girls to fill their baskets with the plastic Easter eggs scattered throughout the back yard.
Once they get the hang of it, once they realize what this game is all about, the girls dive in with reckless abandon, shrieks of laughter floating behind them on the breeze of this beautiful spring weekend afternoon. With the clumsy gait of children who are still new to the mechanics of running, they toddle erratically from egg to egg, picking them up and throwing them gleefully into their baskets. As the baskets fill, a few eggs bounce out as the girls swing their baskets wildly about as they run, but nobody seems to notice or care.
“The Easter bunny was here!” That’s my daughter-in-law, and I cast an appreciative glance her way. I can always count on her to get into the spirit of the holidays.
In the meantime, Lyla has reached down to pick up one more egg, but as she does, her basket tilts precariously. Sure enough, a dozen or more of the eggs she’s already collected spill out. She stares at them for a moment, picks up one of the errant eggs, then turns her basket over and dumps out the remainder of her cache.
Briley has noticed the commotion and comes over to investigate. Seizing the opportunity, she crouches down and begins to pick up her cousin’s eggs, putting them in her own basket.
Lyla had been on the verge of wandering away, abandoning the whole pile, but now that Briley is snapping up “her” eggs, she cries, “Mine!” and begins to take eggs out of Briley’s basket, dropping them into her own.
Pandemonium ensures, at least until the mommies swoop in and pick up their little darlings, whisking them off to opposite corners of the yard, distracting them by pointing out the location of heretofore unclaimed eggs, while Papaw discreetly collects the pile of disputed eggs and scatters them on the other side of the yard.
As for me – Granma – I just stand on the sidelines and watch, smiling.
At ages just-turned-two and not-quite-two, my grandgirls are too young to understand just yet.
But in the years to come, I will talk to them about Easter. I’ll remind them of how, since the time they were old enough to walk, they celebrated the season by hunting for hidden treasures.
And I’ll tell them the story about the real meaning of Easter, where the greatest treasure of all is waiting to be found.