A warm breeze blew across my face as I woke up Easter morning. I walked into the living room greeted with gifts from the Easter Bunny: a yellow basket, some chocolate, Peeps, and a bag of jelly beans. Pink, yellow, and green plastic eggs were scattered around the room waiting to be seeked out by me and my young sisters.  “Time for breakfast”, I say to myself resisting the temptation of the candy in front of me.

I walk to the refrigerator and take out the egg carton from the bottom shelf. Opening the carton, I see the hard-boiled eggs we dyed a few days ago. There were a bunch of crayon drawings on the eggs as well. I took out the first egg and observed the drawing: there was a green sphere with blue lines encircled around it like a bunch of needles. The sphere appeared to be a microscopic virus and the words “COVID 19” were written all over the egg. As such, I began to think back 2 years ago: the government issued a quarantine order, my grandparents had contracted COVID and there was so much uncertainty lingering in the air. I put the hard-boiled egg to the side and took out another egg.

One side of this egg had three different colored stripes aligned horizontally: the top stripe was left uncolored while the middle and bottom stripes were colored blue and red, respectively. The other side of the egg had but two colored horizontal stripes: blue on the top and yellow at the top. This egg made me think back to a few weeks ago: our local news station shows footage of the Ukraine in utter chaos, threatened by Russian troops. More uncertainty and struggle lingered in the air and the words “Vladmir Putin” were all over the media. I put this egg aside and, feeling more famished than usual, decided to take out one more hard-boiled egg.

This egg was covered with drawings of people with dark skin, some of whom appeared to be Latinx. There were also drawings of guns aimed at their heads by light skinned police officers. I tried to resist the urge to think back, but with little success: I remembered the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, along with many others. Anger and chaos lingered in America as protesters for justice marched around in the streets. At this point, my blood pressure had skyrocketed…..and then it was time to eat breakfast.

I took the “COVID-19” egg and cracked it on the counter. “There goes COVID-19”, I said to myself as I broke the eggshell to bits. “There it goes into the garbage”, I said, a bit more sternly as I tore the eggshell to bits. I then took the “Russia-Ukraine egg” and tore the eggshell to shreds. “There we go, much better”, I said, throwing the shells into the trash bin. I took the last egg with the gun drawings and broke that apart as well. “This is how I feel about police brutality”, I said, practically slaughtering the egg. Upon disposing of the eggshells, I began to calm down. I took the hard-boiled eggs into the dining room and began to eat my breakfast.

Moments later, my sisters walked into the room. “Good morning Sophie and Gabriella, happy Easter”, I said to them. “Spring has sprung, a time free of worry, free of insanity, and a time for hope. Come on, let’s have our egg hunt”, I said to my sisters as I quickly finished my breakfast. Sophie and Gabriella each found six eggs while I only managed to find two. But that’s alright, these plastic eggs showed colors of hope and peace-that’s all that matters.

Have a happy and safe Easter season! Things will get better soon, I promise 😊