The Good Guy Won

He opened a bright yellow plastic egg. The kind found in Easter baskets on the shelf in the holiday aisle, later hidden under a budding bush waiting for small hands to discover. This blond-haired grandson, he separated the egg and curiously, I peered inside, looking to find what captured this little boys attention and drove him to bring the carton of plastic eggs to our house for dinner night. A dialogue between two five-year-old boys ensued, and those voices, they wrapped around me like a silken shawl. I watched and listened, freeze-framing moments, imprinting a memory on my grandmotherly mind. My gaze fell upon a miniature crown of thorns held between grandson's fingers, I inhaled slow. Expecting speckled jelly beans, pastel foil-wrapped Hershey kisses, a few chocolate eggs or maybe a few coins. My ears pricked right sudden when our little grandson held this tiny thorn crown between his elfin fingers. "That made his head bleed." I swallowed. Another egg split open, a diminutive wooden cross he surveyed. "He died on a cross like this one, Grandma." He placed it back inside, snapped the egg closed. Another rattled. "These are nails. They hurt bad." I winced quick. "Jesus loves everyone," brown-haired boy said between bites of a cookie. The air around us softened, a wisp of grace settled in around our impromptu egg party.

The story continued and all the pent up anxiety and stress commanding my heart lately pooled onto the wooden floor, a reflection of this radical forgiveness, this amazing grace. Cradling those moments like a beloved photograph, resisting the urge to tell the story for them, I waited for their version, the kind that mixes it up a bit but the main ingredient still holds it all together. His story unfolded, innocently revealed, one plastic egg at a time.

Later in the week I bought my own multi-colored plastic eggs at a Dollar Tree. Readying to hide them for an early Easter hunt my thoughts spooled back to the story-tellers, two children chatting it up about the grandest of love. I plopped a yellow jelly bean inside a sky-blue egg with painted white bunnies and yellow swirls. Fastened it closed. A quarter dropped in another. Two organic fruit snacks in a daisy-colored hot-pink egg. All the while I thought about this tale that spins wild, a man on a cross, a thirst so grand, and a bleed no Band-Aid could contain. An empty tomb, the bad guy defeated, and two five-year-old boys setting it right all over again for that small child still living inside of you and me.

#All for love