Resurrection — An Essay

A Short Story by Alice Adams and Amanda Jo Runyon

Essa woke in the early morning to fill the stove with wood and light it with a kerosene-soaked newspaper. She placed the eggs in an iron pot and listened for them to rattle as they began to boil. Soon, the little girl was awake and climbing to reach the cherry drop leaf table where Essa had placed six china cups. Essa watched as the girl carefully dropped tablets of dye into each cup. The girl was unaware that the table was older than Essa’s parents, who used it to begin housekeeping so many years ago. She didn’t realize that she was one of many little girls who had climbed to up to this very table to watch the magic of eggs changing color on Easter morning.

Easter was Essa’s favorite holiday. She loved the Easter flowers growing in the front yard and the sounds of the church bells down the road. She loved to watch the families gather for picnics, sons and fathers in brightly colored ties and mothers and daughters in matching lace hats and gloves. Most of all, Essa loved the egg hunt. She was always the one who colored the eggs with the children and ran out to hide them through the yard as they covered their eyes and giggled from the house. No matter how old Essa got, everything felt new and young on Easter morning. Even now, coloring eggs with the little girl, a third cousin, sixty years her junior, Essa felt as excited as a child.

When the eggs were boiled and cooled, Essa filled each cup with hot water. Heads pressed together, she and the girl watched as the dye tablets swirled and filled the china with brilliant blues, reds, and greens. She gave the girl a wire scoop and helped her turn the eggs gently until the colors were even across the shell. One by one they transformed the eggs into colorful canvases. Essa felt the resurrection of her own childhood wonder as the girl’s eyes widened with each work of art.

When the eggs were ready, Essa and the girl placed them in a tattered basket filled with green paper grass. They rushed outside where the girl ducked by the front door, covering her eyes while Essa hid the eggs. Essa chose her hiding spots carefully. She placed the colorful eggs around the swing frame, along the fencerow, behind the cistern, near the rose bush growing over the trellis, and in the tufts of grass surrounding the house. Essa called for the girl and she came running, swinging her basket in the crook of her elbow. Her squeals filled the yard as she uncovered the eggs. When they were all found, she begged Essa to hide them again. Essa hid the eggs over and over, bending her old frame low to the ground to find new nooks and crannies to use as hiding spots. The girl did not tire of hunting them, even after they grew cracked and mushy.

Just as Essa’s youth was restored each Easter, the joy in the girl’s eyes was reborn each time she spotted a flash of blue beneath the grass.