Easter

Happy Easter! I am so thankful for the resurrection we celebrate today, especially this year with my Gramps passing. Easter was Gramps' holiday. He and Gram hosted our annual Easter egg hunt every year at their house. Gram would fill the eggs and gramps would hide them. And hide he would, none of this sissy throw the eggs in the grass stuff. Each year there was a Gold and a Silver egg and everybody wanted those because they held the big bucks along with the more important bragging rights. There was no age limit- you joined the hunt once you could walk and you quit hunting when.....well none of us got to that point. There was not a limit to the eggs you could find - some years some people found four, other years they found 20. But gramps was good about noticing those who were short on eggs and he might start walking next to them, asking why they hadn't found many and then accidentally kick over a dirt clod that just happened to have an egg hiding underneath it. There was no such thing as being a "grown-up" when it came to this hunt. As adults, we still pick through the sagebrush hurrying to see the eggs before our kids do and some of us have been known to throw a friendly elbow or two as we try to snatch up an egg at the same time as one of our cousins. Every year there are eggs that aren't found and every year someone would suggest making a map, sometimes even Gramps. But that never happened because that kind of takes the fun out of it Yep, Easter Sundays are some of the best memories I have from my childhood and of Gramps. And somehow, even though it was all about the hunt, I never felt like it took us away or made us forget the real reason why we celebrate Easter because Gramps had a testimony of that and he lived it. The reason he and Gram went to all this trouble every year had nothing to do with us having one more piece of candy and everything to do with creating memories and bringing us together as a family to love and appreciate one another. And in the end the Easter story really is about love isn't it?

Happy Easter! We miss you Gramps.