Since my grandchildren have arrived, I don’t only color eggs, but I have also become the Easter Bunny. I color the eggs and hide the eggs. Of course Remy 6, and Cosette 2 really believe there is an Easter Bunny, and this year he came to a place outside the city where trees and hedges provided enough places to hide the brightly colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies that never fail to go with them.
When the children arrived and I opened the door Remy said excitedly:
“Moma there is an egg under the bush outside the house!”
Looking surprised I said: “Really – I think the Easter Bunny wanted to be sure that you don’t go to the wrong house”
“Can I take it?” he asked. When he had picked it up and showed it to me a memory of a moment long ago, in a park far away flooded over me.
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I was 5 years old. The war was over but food was still very scarce. My mother and I had come to visit my grandparents for Easter who lived in Frankfurt. On Easter Sunday, all dressed for the occasion, my mother told me that this year we going to the nearby park to find out if the Easter Bunny had hidden any eggs there. It was a warm sunny day and the tall trees standing close together provided shade and subdued the bright April sun. A few minutes after we got to the park, my mother said,
“Muschi, why don’t you look if the Easter Bunny left something here?”
I looked behind a few trees and bushes – then there it was – a beautiful red egg hidden under some leaves. I picked it up and run to my mother, “Give it to me I will hold it for you,” she said. I did and continued to run between the trees in search for more, and I found another egg! Again it was red, and handing to my mother I continued to search. I found many eggs that day, so many that after a while I said,
“Why don’t we all eat an egg now?” She looked at my grandfather and grandmother and replied,
“I think we will wait, but you have one now!”
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Many years later, during another Easter celebration my mother asked me, “Do you remember the Easter when you found all those eggs in the park?”
“Yes, I found a lot of eggs that day.”
“How many eggs do you think you found?”
“I don’t know how many, but I remember there were a lot and they were all red.”
“Yes, you are right red was the color, but” – and she hesitated a moment before continuing – “the truth is we had only one egg! But to make you think that there were many, I had agreed beforehand with Opa (that’s how I called my grandfather) that when you gave me the egg I would hand it back to him and he would hide it again and again, making you think that there were many eggs – but there was just one.”
I listened to her carefully but knowing the truth now didn’t change the truth for me – as I remember it, and always will – I had found many, many red eggs that day!
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HAPPY EASTER – AND MAY YOU FIND MANY EGGS OF MANY COLORS
And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything!
Ready to Live Longer 