VICK'S VIEW: An old egg and a shoe

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I have always loved Easter. I love coloring eggs with dye, egg hunts, wearing pastel clothes, the beautiful flowers of springtime and the story of the Resurrection. But one year, I discovered that eggs can be worse than awful, horrible, devastating, atrocious….you get the picture.

Our church in North Charleston had a huge parking lot that was connected to our driveway at the parsonage. My husband was pastoring the church and our house was directly behind the church.

Easter of 1991, our church sponsored an Easter Egg Hunt. Kids showed up from everywhere. Luckily, we had plenty of plastic eggs. But some “genius” in our church brought hardboiled, dyed eggs. Real eggs. Real, live, hardboiled eggs. And an even bigger “genius” decided to add them to the plastic egg collection.

Some adults and teens got busy on that Saturday and hid the eggs while the children were inside the church playing games and having snacks.

Finally, it was hunting time. Like a herd of puppies running amok, kids shot out of the building searching for eggs all over the property with parents running behind and taking pictures. There was screaming, giggling, crying, pushing, whining…you know, all the things that go into making an egg hunt successful. The kids had a great time, too (that was a little snarky).

At the end of the day, a good time was had by all, and we looked forward to the Resurrection story on Sunday. Before we all left the church, I asked, “How many eggs did we put out, and did we get them all?”

Everyone looked at me blankly….no one had counted.

Oh, well, I figured it didn’t really matter.

Flash forward to July 4, 1991. It was a typical summer day in the Lowcountry…hot and humid.

My family was getting ready to spend the Fourth of July with a picnic at Charlestown Landing, so I had food prepared, the cooler ready, kids dressed, and the car loaded. Ready to go, I looked around and realized that my youngest son was missing. At 6 years old, that was typical.

Now, my youngest would have been my “only” had he been born first. During my pregnancy, I kept sore ribs where he constantly boxed with them. I think the ribs made him feel like he was in jail and he wanted to escape. He fought the doctor during the birthing process, then fought the nurse and almost fell out of the bassinet in the delivery room. I knew we were in trouble then.

Feisty, incredibly smart, rambunctious, and a sneaky prankster, he was a handful.

Looking around the house, I found him throwing sticks into the small patch of woods near our garage. Fussing at him, I told him we were ready to leave and go to the car. But all of the sudden, he stopped and yelled, “Mom! Look what I found!”

Sighing, I walked over and there it was. A beautiful aqua colored egg, lying near the roots of a tree. Before I could say anything, my son stuck is little foot out and stomped the egg, just as I screamed, “NO-O-O-O!!!

It was too late. The smell almost knocked us both unconscious.

Quickly, I grabbed him up, yanked off his leather/plastic sneaker and rushed to the water hose. Grabbing a brush used to clean the grill, I scrubbed. My husband ran up with dish detergent, and I scrubbed it again.

Finally, we were ready to leave. With his clean shoe, we got in the car, ready for our trip. Five minutes later, we had to put the windows down. The shoe was smelling up the car. Frustrated, I put his shoe in a bag in the trunk, and we made a stop to buy him some flip flops.

Days later, I had washed the shoe in bleach, used odor removing products, washed it in the machine and by hand, left it outside in the sun for days, used an old toothbrush with Comet on it, sprayed it with Lysol, soaked it in vinegar and everything else I could think of, to no avail. That one stomped egg destroyed the shoe. I ended up throwing the perfectly good pair of sneakers away. The sneakers looked brand new, but we just couldn’t stand the smell that had permeated deep inside the material of the shoe.

It’s kind of like people. You never know what’s going on beneath the surface. They may look just fine, they may even say, “I’m fine”, but they aren’t. Inside, they are a sad, worried, anxiety ridden mess….but you would never know to look at them. They would probably appreciate a friend who is a good listener. Be that friend.