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and commanding sometimes, but in reality, he was kind, gentle, and somewhat of a pushover. He loved us all, and we felt it.

The excitement was almost too much for us young ’uns to bear.

We watched the cars park along the paved county-maintained roadway. The doors swung open, and various family members unfolded and emerged from the vehicles. Someone helped my grandmother from a car and guided her to a lawn chair to oversee the big egg hunt. Grandmother Jarriel was the mistress of ceremonies, our special guest, our queen for the day (and every day). Easter was her day to shine.

After listening to the rules of the hunt, the adults finally turned us loose. We ran wild and plucked the colored eggs from their hiding places and gathered them in our baskets and buckets. Afterwards, we cracked them open and feasted on the boiled eggs in the woods, sprinkling each with lots of salt and pepper and washing them down with cold soft drinks we pulled from an icy cooler.

Years later, those egg hunts remain some of my favorite memories.

In my mind’s eye, I see all those colored Easter eggs — powder puff pink, canary yellow, grass green, sky blue, and yes, some were even brown. Those rainbow eggs were as lovely as they were delicious.

And I see the azaleas blooming in South Georgia underneath the peaceful canopy of pines and dogwood trees.

And I smell the freshness of the countryside — the organic aroma of newly fallen pine straw littering the ground and recentlyplowed dirt mounded in nearby fields.

Most of all, I see all the faces of our loved ones who gathered there to commemorate another Easter. So many of them are gone now and buried deeply in Mother Earth’s ground. I sure miss seeing those faces and hearing their laughter. I miss their presence. I guess what I’m trying to say is — I miss the Easters of my childhood.