Easter egg expert

It was Holy Saturday, maybe in 1975.  All my children had been sent to Reme’s house where they were going to spend the day out of our way.  All the mommies were going to meet at my house.  I can’t remember what our husbands did.  They were somewhere else but would all come to my house at around six.

 The two tables at my back porch were covered with newspapers and drying racks.  Food coloring and pentel pens were scattered over the tabletops.  Bottles of red vinegar and cooking oil, too.  These were the materials we needed to make a hundred Easter eggs. There were lots of cups for coloring the eggs.  My maids — and I had three or four then in addition to my cook who was gay — walked in and out of the kitchen to bring us hot water in kettles, pour them into the cups.

There were four of us who loved each other — Reme, Marilou, Charing and me.  We had agreed on this project weeks before.  To color the eggs, I said, put hot water in a cup and add as many drops of food coloring as you want.  I always used a minimum of 10 drops and a teaspoon of red vinegar.  The vinegar makes the color stick to the eggs.  Leave the egg in the cup for about ten minutes.  Then dry it on the racks.  You can control the shade, make it pale or dark.  You can also make it marbled by putting a few drops of oil in and dipping the egg in various colors.  Be as creative as you want.

 Then use the pentel pens — with edible ink by the way — and design flowers or anything, messages, insects, polka dots on the eggs.  We went to work, joking with each other, gossiping, laughing all the time. 

I loved making Easter eggs.  I think it began when as a little girl my mother got me to make Easter eggs with her and we brought it to the orphanage.  I always made pretty eggs.  Some looked like ladybugs, others like Volkswagen beetles.  Others were just polka dotted.  Nobody really cared as long as the eggs looked nice.

At around six, our husbands came home and we all went out to dinner with the children.  I think we might have gone to Kimpura, our favorite Japanese restaurant at the time.  At home we left the maids to wrap the dried eggs in foil and to keep them from the children.

The next morning, while we were at church, the maids hid the eggs among the plants in the garden.  Close to 11, everyone came to the house for the Easter egg hunt and then lunch.  In addition to our children, other cousins their age came bringing Easter baskets.  They hunted for the eggs.  My husband had just gotten a new super 8 camera and he made a film of them.  I cannot forget the scene where all the children were sitting on the grass in our large garden with their Easter baskets in front of them and all the girls shook their heads from left to right moving their lovely long hair from side to side like they were Farah Fawcett.

We were so happy then.  Most of the children were small, had not yet reached the age of puberty.  I suppose it was the age of innocence for parents and children.

I think about these times as I look out my window at the leaves of the trees that have suddenly grown back and are always moving blown by a light breeze.  What happened to us?  How did we manage to fall so much apart, to lose track of each other and not seem to care?  I come up with only one answer:  Life happened.  It made the dear sweet little children grow up.  My eldest daughter who was less than 12 then is almost 50 now.  I was in my 20sthen, will be 70 in a few years.  All of the children then are adults now maybe having Easter egg hunts of their own.

When was the last time I made real Easter eggs?  I remember when my oldest grandson Pow was around three years old and just returned from the States.  It was his first Easter here.  I was excited.  I asked my daughter if she wanted me to make Easter eggs for the children to hunt.  No, Mom, she said, we don’t believe in Easter bunnies and Easter eggs.  We are Born Again.  As an Easter egg expert, that was the moment I cracked and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put this Humpty Dumpty together again.

That grandson is 27 now, one of the thousands of gifts that life brings.  Life happens again and again and continues to bring change.  In the end we have memories.  I am profoundly grateful of the memories.