With Easter coming up this weekend, the only things I’ve been able to think of lately are all the traditions I grew up with.
Easter time meant family time and family time meant grandparents. I used to beg my mother and grandmother to boil as many eggs as they could. With fingers stained with dye and smelling of vinegar, I’d sit at the kitchen table for hours, happy with only a little encouragement: “Yes, Lauren. They look pretty.”
My sister and I grew up with Easter eggs and Easter baskets—plus a Sunday egg hunt in my grandmother’s backyard, with eggs stashed behind swimming pools, in the cracks of tree branches, and deep in the gardens full of hydrangeas.
When my grandmother passed away, the traditions continued. I remember my mother and I reminiscing: “We’ll dye one hundred eggs this year—in her honor.” We never dyed one hundred eggs—who could eat one hundred eggs? But we have continued the tradition every year, thinking of her every time.
At nineteen and twenty-four years old, my sister and I will sit down at the kitchen table this weekend—me home from college and her home from Spain. Her boyfriend joining us this year—home with her from Morocco and new to the tradition. A sign of things changing, but still staying the same.
We will sit at the kitchen table and dye Easter eggs in my grandmother’s honor.
