Mama, Papa, my older sister Becky, and me

The reason is the dyes for the hard-boiled eggs require vinegar to set the color.

So, as a kid and as a mother-acting-like-a-kid, we dyed hard-boiled eggs rainbow colors like pink, green, yellow and blue.

They’d end up in our lunches the next week, always a little bashed and sad-looking.

My grandparents visited every Easter when I was little.

Granny saved her Osage tribal money for shoes for the four of us.

We’d get black or white patent-leather shoes to wear to Sunday school, careful to avoid the grass stains from hunting eggs.

My grandfather would bring an animal each year in a box lined with wood shavings.

Rabbits. Guinea pigs. Hamsters. Turtles. Parakeets.

The animals had the habit of disappearing after Easter.

I never solved the mystery of where they went.