The Easter Bunny

Photo by Brian Wegman 🎃 on Unsplash‍ ‍

I never believed in the Easter bunny,

even when I was very small.

Flying reindeer?

A fat man climbing down our chimney

and emerging through the furnace

to deliver presents? 

Fine.

But a giant rabbit dispensing candy and colored eggs?

The story never found room in my head.

Yet Easter held its own mysteries.

A new dress.  Hat. Even gloves.

A suit for my big brother,

who never wore suits.

Mommy went with us to church

instead of sending us off with a friend

and using the day to catch up on chores.

(Daddy stayed home, of course.

He always stayed home,

his lip curled

at the mere

mention

of church.)

Then there was our clapboard church,

embroidered vestments,

processions,

incense,

bells.

The congregation leaping to their feet

after the too-long service,

smiling and proclaiming,

“Christ is risen!”

And the response, 

“He is risen indeed!”

All strange and wonderful.

The true mystery, though, lay

not in the grown-ups unaccustomed enthusiasm,

nor in the too-long-ago-to-matter Rising,

but in a mystery much nearer home.

The strange mechanism by which

our Easter baskets appeared

on the kitchen table

while we sat in church.

Who?  How?

I never once considered that, of course,

our mother would have bought the candy,

prepared the baskets,

tucked them away,

leaving our father

to put them out

while we sat in church.

What could have been more obvious?

Except that

it might have been easier, after all,

to believe in the Easter bunny

than to imagine our father

doing such a small,

frivolous

thing

just

for

us.