The Easter Bennet

Sunday, April 12 09

The Easter Bunny sat with an upside-down-chick-basket on his head, reading his newspaper in Mrs Bennet’s empty shed. Chocolate eggs were hidden in the garden and the Easter Bennets were standing patiently behind the lounge door, waiting to be allowed in to start their hunt. It was the simple things in life which often brought the most joy. Children didn’t care about mess, they cared about having fun and sometimes it was the mess which added to the excitement. So the Easter Bunny’s egg collection was hidden in the building site of a garden amongst an abandoned garage door, rubble, various broken bits of pipe, overgrown grass, mud and bricks – oh, and empty coca cola bottles left behind by the Darcys in the Dirt.
Mrs Bennet’s dad, the Easter Bunny sat quite happily in his nesting shed reading the sports pages, but it wasn’t long before the squeals of delight reached him and he was discovered.
Mrs Bennet thought it wise for Miss Bennets Numbers One, Two and Three to complete their hunt before the little Twin Bennets appeared on the scene and gobbled up the treasure. The aim was to gather the eggs up and put them in a corporate basket to be shared out equally later. Mrs Bennet knew Spag and Bol would not give up their chocolate without a fight and instead either crush it into their sticky palms or stuff it into their hungry mouths. They had good taste and could sniff chocolate through two closed doors.
They woke up from their lunch-time nap just as their older siblings embarked on the outside part of the hunt. Like little puppies however they managed to uncover the hidden delights their sisters had missed, and polished up their motor skills by pulling off any golden wrapper to get their prize. Spag managed to get chocolate everywhere, hands, mouth, hair and bottom. Bol had a tiny smear on her lips, but apart from that was immaculately clean.
It was these classic priceless moments of watching her children laughing, her father looking so ridiculous in his silly makeshift hat and observing how proud and happy Mr Bennet and Jannie were at just being there, which made life worthwhile. Easter for the Bennet family hadn’t been easy. The Good Friday atmosphere threatened to drag them all down. When something life-threatening lingered on the horizon it made it hard to remember hope, yet hope was what Easter was all about and the promise of new life.
There was a black cloud over the Bennets. The big C had attacked one of its precious members. Yet her courage, her determination and her love for life was pushing her on in a defeat-less attitude. Emotionally the road was rocky and draining and Mrs Bennet knew the weeks and months ahead were going to be tough for them all. But seeing the laughter, the chocolate feast, the simplicity of an egg hunt and the joy on her children’s faces, helped restore that Easter Sunday hope. Bite-size Pemberley, as incomplete as it was, was now insignificant. It no longer mattered. What mattered was the moment.