Easter is a bit different this year. No big beautiful family meal at Aunt Lisa’s, no dressing up fancy and no Easter egg hunt at the park. Instead only six eggs to color, scrounging up strange kitchen drawer candy, raiding the present closet for a basket filler.
This is week four of the quarantine, week four of the emotional roller coaster, first full week of homeschooling, second week where I have no sales team left to work with, fourth week of no customers, fourth week of no answers.
What will the kids remember? The tears and arguments? The short tempered parents? Being separated from friends and grandparents?
Probably not. They are ages three and seven. They will remember the year the Easter Bunny brought legos instead of marshmallow eggs. (It’s a dangerous precedent really.)
I remember in tough times, not the trouble itself so much as the comfort my mom employed. Sometimes it was for her comfort, like her favorite food (creamed eggs on toast), sometimes for our comfort like holding my head in a certain squeeze, or reading at the end of her bed.
I don’t need the iron this morning, or a fresh pair of tights, or a pan of food to bring, or to rush out the door hollering to “get in the car or else!”.
But I sure do need some hope.
Some hope to help me take these six eggs and, like the lemon to lemonade adage, make something of them. Maybe egg salad.
But not creamed eggs on toast. Because it’s gross.