Easter Memory

My late husband, Dave, and I  purchased a house in a rural subdivision called Woodmoor, adjacent to Monument, Colorado in 1995--the same year my first novel (SHADES OF ROSE) was released.  It used to always snow on Easter here in the days before Climate Change.  Typically, March and April are our snowiest months, but not this year!  That's another topic for another post....

This would have been Easter 1996.  Our son, Ben, was 6, Bonnie 9, and Barbi 13-14.  As usual, it snowed (a lot) on Easter Sunday.  Dave loved to hide the eggs, and we had 1.25 acres of old growth pine forest.  I reminded him to leave some of them out in places easy for Bonnie to find.  Even though older than Ben, she was smaller and has Down Syndrome.  As it turned out, he didn't have to that year.  :)

Because the snow was deep and still falling, we left the baskets inside and gave the kids plastic grocery bags to use for their hunt.  I don't recall Barbi participating.  I think she already considered herself "too old" for such activity, but not for the chocolate bunny, of course.  We had no  idea that young Ben's bag had a hole in the corner just big enough for those real and plastic eggs filled with goodies to slip right through....

In typical fashion, he darted around our wooded lot from tree to tree, finding all the loot in record time.  Bonnie plodded along in her pink snow suit behind her brother, bending over every few steps and picking up what fell through the hole in his bag.  Each time she did, she said, "Thank you, Ben."  I'm sure she repeated this motion and statement at least twenty times before they finished.  When both children came to us with their bags, Bonnie's was full and Ben's had one little egg that hadn't slipped through the hole.  He looked devastated.  We showed him the hole and Bonnie said, "Thank you, Ben" again.  Then she gave him the bag after removing one plastic egg.

I really wish I  had a video of this Easter morning--especially of their dad laughing so hard there were tears streaming down his face.  We were all laughing, of course, except Ben and Bonnie.  Both these children have hearts of gold, just like their dad.  They shared the candy, and all was well.

Have a wonderful day, however you spend it.  I hope you share it with someone you love.  Ben and Bonnie are both here with me to have dinner.  And even at 25, Bonnie hasn't outgrown the joy of dying Easter eggs, though now I devil them instead of hiding them.  :)  Look whose name she put on one of those eggs....

Happy reading.

Love,
Deb