“Don’t go off the green path. When your basket is full, you are done. Ready? Go!”
You’d think such simple instructions designed for children would be understandable to a large group of likely educated adults, but the chaos was immediate and ferocious. People streamed into the once-abandoned mini golf course in search of hundreds of little plastic eggs with surprises inside.
With my curious toddler taking wobbly steps between my legs, we moved forward with the mob. Small children were being lifted up and carried through the bushes. Older ones were already sprinting in every direction, many carrying their own much larger baskets than the hotel provided.
My wife and I eyed the bushes for remnants left after hordes of filthy hobbitses had ravaged them in seconds. We spotted a well-hidden one and encouraged our toddler to explore it. With both of us holding out cameras to capture the moment and my toddler reaching excitedly for the egg, a seven-year-old arm swooped in front of my lens to snap up the hidden treasure.
My wife's teacher skills immediately got the seven-year-old course-corrected and our daughter was able to find her first egg. As we continued on the path, children frantically hunted around us, baskets overflowing with bounty. A dad walked past, looking like he'd gone through a bush backwards, yelling to his oblivious kid that the eggs were all finished. He was holding out his shirt, bulging with eggs that couldn't fit into his child's extra-large basket. My P(doom) increased.
A kind staff member who noticed our daughter planted some eggs in her line of sight as we walked. She lifted one up in excitement as a little boy walked past and grabbed it straight out of her hands.
"Excuse me, can you give that back please?" I said to the little boy whose parents were standing immediately behind him doing nothing.
"She gave it to me!"
Sweating as the Caribbean sun beat down on us, we found the end of the path. Our daughter's basket barely a third full, our faith in humanity dampened. At least there was chocolate in our near future. How did Easter go from our Lord and Saviour sacrificing himself on a cross to co-parenting strangers' children in a mad dash for chocolate eggs laid by a bunny?
In the Cayman Islands, Easter traditions include a spiced, dense, dark fruit loaf served with cheese and butter while camping on the beach — just as… Jesus did? People who like camping, not us, spend their long weekend avoiding showers and swatting at mosquitoes. But hey, if it means you can escape a three-hour fire-and-brimstone sermon with all the people who only show up to church twice a year, I understand.
Our attempts to attend church with a baby, especially when the service lands right in the middle of nap time, have proven tricky. We attend a church that meets in a stinky school gym but we either end up in a ball pit in the cafeteria or making a swift exit as the school halls echo with screaming. This year we didn't make it to celebrate Easter with our church community, but we did eat a lot of chocolate.
My wife and I have a tradition of hiding Easter eggs for each other and laughing as the other — normally me — takes ages to find them. This year our daughter and dog both showed me up with their incredible skills. I still haven’t found one of mine two days later.
While the traditions around it make no sense, taking a moment to think about God's grace in my life and His incredible sacrifice to fix humanity's mistakes is a worthy pause. As I danced around our living room with my daughter to one of her favourite worship songs on Sunday, I was overwhelmed with how good God has been to us in spite of what little I have done to deserve it. Though I have to have earned some Good Place points for parenting significantly better than almost everyone else on that mini golf course.