The Easter Bunny came!

Easter morning, we wake up to big, brightly colored baskets full of eggs, candy, and sidewalk chalk. We gulp down as much chocolate as we can before we have to get dressed for Sunrise Service.

Getting up early on Easter morning is so much easier than other days in the year. I know a brand new Easter outfit will be laid out for me on the couch. The baskets will be lined up in a row in the living room floor, one for each of us. And at church, they will be making pancakes.

During the whole sermon, you can smell sausage and syrup wafting through the sanctuary. The new Easter dress is fabulous, of course, but the tag is kind of itchy and my tights are very tight. We pass babies from one lap to the next, straightening Easter bonnets and trying to look like we’re paying attention.

Finally, the minister asks us to bow our heads and we pray in thanksgiving for Christ Our Savior, His Death and Resurrection, and the Food We are About to Receive. The race to the food is demure. Everyone is on their best behavior. We have visitors today who don’t usually attend the service. People tend to come to church on certain Sundays, like Easter and Christmas, regardless of their habits the rest of the year.

In the afternoon, we head out to Cousin Mickey’s. She has a big yard, picnic tables, a basketball hoop, and a swing set at the bottom of the hill. We pick our way through the muddy, Spring grasses in search of tiny pink and blue plastic orbs loaded with chocolate and dollar bills.

We eat way too much. The kids are shooed outside to play, but we end up back under the grownups feet any chance we get. We gorge on pop and candy and fried chicken.

When it’s time to go home, we load up the van with leftovers and twice as many baskets as we came with. We will be pulling green and purple little strips of Easter grass out of the seat belt buckle for months. We are exhausted, sugared up, and cranky.

My brother and I squabble in the back seat and fall asleep before we reach home. The twenty minute drive is all it takes to knock us out. Tomorrow, we have to go back to school. Today, we doze away the rest of the afternoon, watching The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town on Channel Four, munching on jelly beans while Nana, with glasses perched on the end of her nose, reads aloud the Easter story again from her leather, large print KJV Bible.

The church is small and white and is built into the side of a hill.

The pews are dark red and are dotted with crocheted throws, old Bibles, and baby toys.

The windows face just south enough to let a blinding amount of sun shine through during the Sunday sermon in late spring and early fall.

We have pitch-ins, baby showers, graduation parties, and Vacation Bible School in the shelter house that stands behind the church, up the hill, in front of the cemetery.

Every week, the minster asks if anyone has a song? Sister Mary reads us poems and excerpts and sings songs to us that we’ve never heard, and she doesn’t have the accompanying music, so it’s a capella, off-key, and amazing. Uncle Harry sings “Near the Cross” often, and we all sing along to his particular melody -- “til my rap-tured soul shall find rest bee-yond the ri-ver.”

We are having a foot-washing. Clyde and Flo are here. They are 100 years old if they are a day, and still as dapper as can be. Clyde, in his bomber jacket, and Flo sporting sassy lipstick and sassier spirit. For the foot-washing, we separate. Men to one room. Women to another. As the ladies chatter, and we nervously yet enthusiastically participate in this age-old tradition, Flo tells us how it is.

“Isn’t it just a like a man to spring this on a person? Men, they don’t think about some things. Like a woman wears pantyhose to church. When you get to be my age, you can’t just pull ‘em off so easily to do things like this. You’d think they would warn you. I'll just do it anyway, right through the stockings. Men, they just don’t think about some things.”

We are having a yard sale out front to raise money for a youth trip, or camp, or VBS. We start early. Fortunately, breakfast tastes even better when you eat it at church.

Sister Louise can’t have any sugar, but she loves coffee. It is in that moment that I learn that coffee doesn’t have sugar in it. It had never occurred to me. Occasionally, when I’m adding sugar to my coffee, I’ll remember that moment of clarity and see Sister Louise smiling at me.

We put on Christmas programs, and everyone who wants to gets a chance to sing. No auditions, and no one is left out here. We gather for weekly Youth Group, and giggle about things that are new to our developing bodies and minds.

We form bonds. We are a family. Nothing designates where my family ends and your family begins. We are all one.