Take Another Bite...

Every Easter, my mom would make elaborate Easter baskets out of sugar dipped string and balloons. She would meticulously wrap the balloons in the string, let it dry and then pop the balloons within, leaving an outline that resembled an egg. She would then spend hours decorating them with ribbon roses she hand crafted through a painstaking criss-cross folding technique. She would cut a hole in the egg and glue ribbon around it, then stuff the hollow space with shreds of plastic green grass and glitter. The eggs were sold to relatives and neighbors, and was the best of the many hustles my parents had to survive.

  We were given one basket to share amongst three. Filled with candy we were not allowed to touch until after church, the basket waited for our sacrifice.

  Church was once a year for us. My dad would dress us up and take us to an all Spanish church where we would sit for hours, from morning until afternoon. We spoke no Spanish. 

  They writhed and screamed in a strange tongue as they shook and spasmed with the Lord. The pastor howled at them in Spanish but to our small child ears we heard no difference in languages. The pain and suffering, the anguish in their souls, needed no translation. A real terror welled in my small heart as I wondered what the pastor was doing to them, and would I be next? 

  I whispered to my mom to explain. She swatted me away, annoyed and embarrassed, as if the question was rude. My sister grabbed my hand and we squeezed together, wide eyed and still as we watched grown humans collapse and convulse on the floor before us. 

  My own father, a sinful man who had destroyed all of my mother’s remaining easter baskets in a fit of rage the night before, sat with his eyes closed tight, tears rolling down his sagging cheeks. 

  I wondered if he was thinking about how my mother had fallen to the floor herself, her children beside her trying to help as she struggled to gather up the bits of fake grass and sticky string. How hard she had worked for weeks on these magical creations with us gathered around watching, fascinated as she transformed a balloon into an egg. How similar to the pastor his tone was, screaming at us in Spanish as we struggled to clean up the mess he had made. Were his tears because he understood he had crushed her in a place we all knew was far worse than any punch he had ever thrown?

  We returned home in silence, the silence that was always the normal for our family until it wasn’t. On the dining table was a squashed yellow basket with our reward. Our parents said nothing as one moved like a ghost around the kitchen, preparing dinner, and the other grabbed a beer and went to the garage to smoke weed until dinner was ready.

  The three of us, my brother, sister and I, surrounded the shattered egg and quietly picked out our giant chocolate bunnies. Would they be hollow and empty, a cold void of isolation far removed from the promises of their exterior creamy cuteness, breaking into pieces at one bite, forcing us to scavenge the melting shards and shovel them down before they disappeared? Or could we count on their solidity, able to withstand one bite after the next without resentment or retaliation, standing strong against the dowel within until we were finally satiated and comforted by their sweet, loving wholeness?

  Their tiny eyes glared up at us, recognizing no salvation within us or obligation of sacrifice, offering no promises either way, and dared us to take another bite.