By: Nicholas Renard
In our early twenties we’re finally faced with that coveted period of self-discovery we strived for so dearly in our final days of high school. That bottled angst we dreaded to admit is finally given the loamy soil it needs to take root and flourish into something else. And as students fortunate enough to attend a Division 1 university, we are gifted with seemingly limitless opportunities for self-discovery. All of those years of struggle for self-expression have not been in vain. We can finally find ourselves.
But now we’re faced with a different challenge. While we’re treading water in a sea of stimulating academia and novel sociality it’s easy to forget about the individuals who helped us get this far.
I’m writing this today because today is Easter. I am not a religious man, nor has my immediate family ever demonstrated a shred of piousness. We never went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve or went to a Palm Sunday service. For the record we had no formal interaction with the church whatsoever.
This religious abstinence is fine by me and my parents would agree with me. Our liberal secularism does not yield itself well to Christian doctrines.
So what’s the significance of Easter?
When I think about all of the aid I’ve received from my parents I feel somewhat smothered. I think about the undying emotional support they’ve provided me throughout the years. The late night phone calls when I’ve gotten into trouble, the care packages in the mail with a gift card for groceries. The love and the trust. When I think about these things I find myself fearing that any form of reciprocation is futile.
My attempt at paying it all back brings me to Easter when I was five years old.
At that age there was no possibility in my mind that any holiday heroes could be fake. Santa Clause was absolutely real, I thought, I saw his handiwork every December. Leprechauns were probably real too, heck why not? And so, of course, so must be the Easter Bunny.
Yes, the Easter Bunny, that doe-eyed, floppy eared marmot whose marsupialesque egg-laying tendencies transcended years of evolutionary logic. He was out there somewhere during the rest of the year. Kicking around his lavish warren, weaving baskets and synthesizing peanut butter eggs out of God knows what.
He seemed benevolent, but I always possessed a certain sense of distrust toward him. Nay, I feared him. I couldn’t help but feel threatened by an unusually-sized garden pest who somehow had extensive knowledge of my taste in sweets.
I expressed this fear to my parents about a week before Easter. They assured me that everything was fine and that he was a friendly, albeit intimidating, force.
So for days leading up to Easter I would lay awake in fear of the arrival of this hopping beast. How could he know I loved Reece’s Pieces and Shrinky Dinks without having eavesdropped on my life for a considerable time? How could he know where I would leave out my Easter basket? What hope could my childhood innocence stand up to those beaveresque pearly whites? He knew so much about me, and I so little of him.
And so I lay with one eye open on Easter’s eve, my five-year-old brain running on overdrive, hoping against hope that I would be safe from The Bunny for another year.
When I awoke to find my basket chock-full of goodies I felt the relief wash over me like Cadbury Crème. I rifled through my newfound spoils and smiled. But my luck wasn’t over. I went to open my bedroom door and found an unusual dark pile near the threshold.
It was rabbit feces.
The horror gripped me instantly. He was here. That rascally rabbit was real and he was in my room the night before and I’ll be if he didn’t have the nerve to take a dump on my floor.
I immediately broke into tears and ran to my parents’ room to tell them the sorry news. They embraced me and did their best to quiet my sobs. Then they told me that it was a good sign. The Easter Bunny would not have relieved himself in my room unless he felt truly comfortable doing so.
Wait, what? My infantile mind considered this for a minute. Of course he did that in my room. He knew I was frightened and wanted to assure me of his kindness. Not the most tactful way of showing it, though, I thought.
After that my parents probably took me to an egg hunt or to my grandparents’ house for lunch. I’m not sure, I don’t remember.
What I do remember is when mom and dad finally told me a few years later that the rabbit scat I discovered was simply dog kibble they arranged in a pile for some festive laughs. I didn’t get a laugh out of it. In fact, when they told me of this it was my first hint to the lie that was the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause and the Leprechauns. I cried.
But on that fateful Easter morning when I was five, I didn’t cry. I was no longer afraid of the Easter Bunny, instead, we were pals.
And that’s all thanks to you, mom and dad. You and your silly rabbit poop prank. Your clever and unorthodox child-rearing methods allowed me to live and banished my fears. Maybe it was an insignificant occurrence, but I still think about it every Easter and I am eternally grateful.
Don’t lose sight of your family this Easter. Give mom and dad a call, grandma too. Tell them you love them and tell them some good news about your life. They deserve it.
Addendum: A year after the rabbit poop stunt, I was walking with a friend of mine and his father back from an Easter church service us kids were forced to attend. On the shoulder of his dusty street lay a dead, mutilated rabbit. It had been hit by a car, and hard. His father took one look at it and immediately professed that it was the Easter Bunny. I cried instantly.
The Kansas View 