Memories of Easter

I remember when my sister and I were kids and the family wasn't so fragmented, as it is now, and we would get baskets upon basket of Easter Candy. I recall cleaning up one Easter, getting about 12 baskets of nothin' but candy. This is when there were a lot more family members still alive to give us this much candy and everyone was still getting along with each other. Those memories of real family togetherness seem so distant now. It makes me sad.

After getting together at church, sitting together during mass in the pews, we would all go to grandma's house and eat a big Easter dinner and laugh and talk and share stories from the past. All of us would have so much fun, coloring the Easter eggs, too. Mom and the rest of us kids would have the greatest time, coming up with the cleverest designs.

What a joyful time it was.

But... getting back to the candy...

Any candy made of chocolate, white, milk or dark was yummy to me. Couldn't stand those friggin' marshmallow peeps, though. They were like biting into air. I preferred those little chocolate egg candies and bunny rabbits. Damn, I would go to town on those. Sometimes, I believe it's a real wonder that I didn't develop diabetes at an earlier age instead of my mid-thirties.

Now, the hollowed out chocolate rabbits were easy eatin'. But those big 2 or 3 pound solid chocolate bunnies might has well have been made out of granite. I would spend the next four or five days gnawing on all of them sonsofbitches. The ears, of course, are always easy, but the rest, not so much. I think I lost a fucking tooth one year, trying to consume one of these motherfuckers. By the time I was done using my teeth, scraping chocolate shavings off of those chocolate monstrosities, my gums would be bleeding and my face would look like I had dipped my head into a mountain of turds.

There would be times I would use a friggin hammer to bust the concrete-like bunnies apart into bite size chunks. Most of the time, though, my impatience to devour the chocolate would cause me to bust my thumbnails apart with the hammer while holding the bunny on the table. My insatiable appetite for chocolate was that severe.

While deep in my chocolate frenzied ecstasy, growling like a insane wildebeest, teeth gnashing on my chocolate, my younger sister would try to sneak a little of my candy away. Big mistake. I would snarl, malevolently and push little sis away from my big brown bounty as if the 12 baskets of candy were the last baskets of candy on Earth.

When I would say to her, "Eat your own candy," there would be huge globs and strands of chocolaty goo hanging from my upper lip and over my lower jaw and dripping down my chest. I likely appeared as some hideous little monster. But I didn't care. I was in the throes of utter chocolate delight. Day and night, I would gobble on the chocolate. I would be chowing on the chocolate either in bed or outside on the swing set or in the car or in our trees. Wherever- it didn't matter. Finally, after four or five days, I finished it all off.

Sure, I'd need some dental work done by the time I had completed the task, but at least I felt satisfied.

Nowadays, with mom gone from our lives and our family being as fragmented as it is, we (our little group of seven) are lucky to even celebrate Easter. Later today, sometime, we'll go to my sister's place and eat a meal, hide some Easter eggs for my little nieces to find and share stories of the good ol' days, hopefully- maybe even share some nice stories of the present. Even more hopefully, Dad won't be in one of his verbally abusive and extremely negative moods but you never know these days.

Really, the most enjoyment I get out of Easter, anymore, is watching and hearing the laughs and giggles from my nieces as they try to find the Easter eggs. It gives me some happiness to try to help hide the eggs in some tricky locations just to see if they'll be able to discover them before nightfall. Heh heh. And it's a big, fun competition between the two, usually and it's really quite humorous, observing them as they hunt in the bushes, behind the trees and other places. Everything else, at least to me, is just a sad reminder of how good things used to be.

Here's hoping everyone truly has a HAPPY EASTER today. Always remember the good times and always try to create or inspire the good times. You never know how long they're going to last. Take care!