I apologize if anyone is offended by my “Happy Easter”, it’s not meant to exclude anyone or be politically incorrect. Easter is something that I celebrate so I’m sharing the wish, that’s all.
I cannot tell you that I am deeply religious, I do have “faith” it’s my own thing, and faith is not a subject I engage in often. Religion and Politics are two things that I have opinions on, but that I rarely discuss, today will be no exception.
Today I’m going to talk about my FAVORITE Easter memory of my whole life, think back to my “trigger” blog if you have been following along. I was blessed with having really good parents, they were not perfect or anything but honestly they were just really good people and I’m grateful for that. I was further blessed with having other people throughout my life who really played a role of “parenting” for me, good people who I very much appreciate.
One of those people I called “ma”, she was my Ma B., and she was the mother next door to where I spent a good number of years as a child. She was a good lady, she was very good TO ME I have to say, in many ways over the years ~ but she will forever be the one memory for me that will ALWAYS stand out on Easter. Ma B. had a lot going on, she worked hard and didn’t have a lot of money, with a whole lot of mouths to feed and clothe having EIGHT kids of her own as a single mother, I don’t know how she ever had the time or energy to even THINK about making me feel special but she did.
We lived next door to one another with a fence between us, and EVERY year on Easter morning I had a special plastic rabbit head Easter basket hanging on the fence for me. Of course when I was a child I had no idea it was her, I just thought the Easter Bunny really thought I was something special! I honestly don’t remember a single thing that was ever IN the basket, but I know that every year I would fly to the back door to see if my “special basket” was hanging on the fence. I can still SEE the ‘basket’ itself in my mind as if I received it yesterday. It was a hard plastic bunny head, the ears came up the side and it had a handle; an off white color overall with some other coloring on it. I’ve searched the internet for a picture but I can’t find one that matches my memory. Funny, wonder how I thought the “Bunny” got it back each year, thank goodness kids don’t start to question things very early on.
The important takeaway for me here though isn’t the basket, nor what was in it; it’s the woman behind the basket. Her life was not an easy one by anyone’s standards, she really had some rough roads along the way (all things I would learn much later of course). She certainly had more than enough on her plate to worry about and deal with without worrying about someone else’s kid, or adding one more to “do for” to her already overflowing pile. Yet she did. She didn’t complain, she didn’t spend a great deal of time entertaining pity parties; through all of her struggles she made MY stupid little basket tradition somehow important. What an amazing lady to see so far beyond herself and to be so selfless, and to go out of her way to make “unimportant” me feel so special and important.
I’m grateful that my mom ratted her out as the “special Easter bunny” when I got older, and that she stayed in my life into my adulthood. I’m grateful that I got to thank her for what she did all those years and let her know how much it meant to me. I’m grateful for her love, and for having her in my life and I can only hope that I learned from her at least some of the skills to being someone else’s “Special Easter Bunny” in some way during MY lifetime. Thanks Momma B ~ you will never REALLY know how much those baskets meant to me! Much Love.
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