The Bunny Charm
October 12, 2007
I am not sure when I received the gold necklace with the bunny rabbit charm but I know it was from my grandmother, Hazel, and I assume it was on an Easter Sunday. The bunny rabbit hangs on a short gold chain and matches the necklaces that my cousins, Meghan and Bridgette, received the same Easter Sunday.
Every Easter, my brothers and I would wake up, excited and race downstairs to discover what the Easter bunny had left for us. One year, the bunny left a dozen Easter egg munchkins that were clearly purchased from Dunkin Donuts after she worked the night shift as a nurse at our local hospital. The donuts were shaped like eggs and were in a pink plastic egg carton and every other donut was dipped in white frosting and sprinkled with jimmies. My brother Bobby and I ate more than half of our munchkin eggs before my mom went to bed to sleep for a bit before we headed to an Easter dinner with family.
Another year, I found a big surprise, the bunny left a cabbage patch doll, beautifully wrapped in a basket with lavender cellophane wrapping. Her name was Something Grace and she had brown hair in two pigtails, brown eyes and wore a white dress with pink flowers and a lace collar. I was completely thrilled that my other cabbage patch doll, Imogene Adora, had a sister. I have never seen a more beautiful Easter basket.
I think the year after Something Grace came along, Dunkin Donuts came out with a plastic Easter basket filled with munchkins that were the regular munchkin flavors, glazed, chocolate, jelly but they had a sprinkling of jimmies. These weren’t as good as the egg shaped munchkins but the Easter bunny worked every other Easter and Bobby and I still worked through the majority of our donuts before noon.
After the donuts were mostly gone, I started to get ready for the trip to Everett. Both sides of my family lived in Everett, about 5 miles from downtown crossing in Boston, it was a 25 minute drive from where we lived in the suburbs. I’m not sure how the necklace ended up on every year. Some years I asked my mom, “Where’s my necklace? I can’t find it.” Other years, my mom would say to me, “Amy, where is your Easter necklace? We are not leaving until you have it on.”
After we arrived at Grandma Hazel’s house, there was a casual but serious inspection that Meghan, Bridgette and I were wearing our necklaces. After the hellos, kisses and we had dipped into the candy dish, the search for Easter eggs began. Gram’s house was not large and being that it was in the city, her yard was the size of a postage stamp and it hindered the possibility of inconspicuous hiding places. Still, the older my cousins, brothers and I became the more we feigned to be puzzled over where the eggs could be hidden. Most of the eggs contained pastel M+Ms candy, some with coins but the peacekeeper of all Easter eggs was the ‘Golden egg’. Gram had a gold plastic egg that was recycled from a pantyhose container, a five-dollar bill could be found in that egg, and it was coveted by all of Gram’s grandchildren.
Dinner was noisy, crowded and hot around her kitchen table with a folding table attached to the end to make it longer. The kids had to sit at the folding table end on aluminum folding chairs. Gram made an awesome ham and roast beef dinner with sweet potatoes, coleslaw, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade macaroni and cheese, and rolls from Piantedosi’s bakery, no one put more of his plate than my Uncle Harvey. The grownups were so busy chatting, gossiping and laughing they were oblivious to how many sodas, rolls and black olives we were eating. Or maybe they did but they were enjoying themselves so much that they couldn’t be bothered trying to get us to eat a balanced meal after we had been eating candy since 7am.
Before dessert began, my Gram would bring out a different ceramic Easter bunny dish. She counted out jellybeans, wrote down the magic number and then covered the whole thing with Saran Wrap. The ‘Jelly Bean Contest’ was ready to begin. Everyone had one try to guess the number of jellybeans in the dish. The winner got the jellybeans, the dish and the glory. I never won.
At some point in high school or maybe my first year in college, I rebelled and did not wear my necklace. I don’t think my mom reminded me or asked me if I had it on, I’m sure she assumed I was old enough to find and wear my own Easter necklace. I remember thinking, no one cares any more and I’m so over that stage that I’m not going to where it and no one will even notice anyway. Oh, they noticed allright and I felt like a loser.
I only forgot one other time to wear my Easter necklace. This Easter Sunday morning, my children discovered their Easter baskets before we left for church. Like my parents, Jim and I let Aidan eat himself sick with candy, Molly only about a month old was not interested in the candy or the basket, but I struggled in my sleep deprivation fog to locate my Easter necklace. Our apartment was smaller than Gram’s postage stamp yard but I could not find my necklace. “Jim, where’s my Easter necklace. You know the short gold chain with the little Easter bunny on it.” Jim, who reminds me so much of the completely oblivious to details Mr. Magoo, replied, “I have no idea. I don’t think I have ever seen you wear it.”
Of course, the first thing my mom said to me as she was taking chubby little Aidan from my arms was, “Where’s your necklace?” And in that moment, I changed from only wearing the necklace because my Gram bought it for me or my mom wants me to or because I don’t want to be the only cousin without it on, to the adult who recognizes the importance of family tradition and the necklace that represents that tradition.
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