Dear Diary, It is Easter! | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Dear Diary, It is the eve of Easter and all is well at the rabbit patch.

    I did not spend the day dying eggs nor hiding them. Lyla is in Wilmington, celebrating her great-grandmothers' ninety-second birthday. Lylas' dad, Will, adores his grandmother. He has been talking about the party for weeks. The pictures, I have seen, of the event, are lovely. Everyone looks so happy, especially, Grandma Thompson. I have said this before, when a child is born in to a family where love is abundant, that child is born "with a silver spoon in their mouth."

    Tomorrow, we will have a special Sunday dinner, with a turkey and all of the usual trimmings. . . but today, we started "spring cleaning". I started early this morning, in the pantry. I burned more branches too, and if no one goes in the back yard, they will find the rabbit patch territory, tidy. I cleaned out the "housekeeping" closet and washed blankets as I did. I find house work enjoyable, if I needn't rush. Tonight, I will look at what was accomplished and take great satisfaction in that. I am by no means finished, but there is more order in the old house, this evening, than there was this morning.

    Tonight will be a sleepless night for the youngest children. How can they sleep knowing a kind rabbit will bring them baskets of chocolates and brightly colored eggs? I still remember the chocolate rabbits from my own childhood. Sometimes we got buckets with shovels. Mama made cakes shaped like rabbits for Easter Sunday.

    My sisters and I always got a new dress for Easter. There were also hats, gloves and little white pocketbooks, to match our white patent leather shoes. I loved the shiny little shoes, even if they were hard and were difficult to buckle. We would not wear our black patent leather shoes again-til after Labor Day. I still stick to that rule, though all of the fashion experts have given us permission to throw "caution to the wind" and wear white when you please.

    Mama rolled our hair on Saturday night. That was another reason it was hard to sleep. Both of my sisters had hair that curled beautifully. My curls fell out in Sunday School, no matter how much "Adorn" Mama sprayed on them. That was also about the time, that the lace that trimmed every thing we wore , started to itch and the fancy shoes started to pinch. I was also tired of the little gloves. I could not color well with gloves, but at least, I had a new pocketbook to put them in.

    There were always several egg hunts to attend. The Sunday school teachers had one and our family had one too. I do not know why, but I was never good at finding eggs. Children would rush to their parents exclaiming they had twenty or thirty eggs. I told Mama I had four, in a whisper. I who find wild violets and four leaf clovers, could not find the brightly colored eggs. Sympathetic mothers encouraged their children to"share" with me. The children filed by with sullen faces and would toss a few eggs in my basket, begrudgingly. It was the same every year, and to this day it remains a mystery, for me, that I could not find the brightly colored eggs in the spring grass. Thank Goodness, I have seen a picture of Lyla , in Wilmington, with a heaping basket of eggs, already. She can find eggs, so she must have dodged that dreadful gene.

    Dear Diary, It is Easter, and the day has dawned fair.

    The turkey is cooking, in the very old roasting pan as the first golden rays declare the morning. I have pulled out dishes in all sorts of pastels. There is a pink butter dish, shaped like a rabbit and the lovely set of salt and pepper shakers, that Rae gave me. They are shaped like rabbits, too. I have a platter with birds on it, that my sister gave me, for the turkey-so the table should be particularly inviting. I will search the rabbit patch for something to go in a vase. I will probably pick up a few branches along the way, too.

    Last year, it rained all day on Easter. I remember gathering flowers in the rain. Today, more than makes up for it. There is a light breeze blowing gently. The dogwood is blossoming and the azaleas at the rabbit patch are doing their part, to remind us of life renewed. . . as do brightly colored eggs and the young rabbits that play on the rabbit patch , while the birds, build their nests.