The Big Egg

Lila Clare,

I remember when I was not much older than you are now, I think I was six or seven, and being so excited for our family Easter Egg hunt at my grandmother’s house. I’m sure we’d done it in the past, but this was the first year I actually remember… because it was really special.

Our egg hunts were set up for me, your Uncle Caca, and our two cousins, Staci and Stefani. The eggs were usually in plain sight, hidden by my uncles after a multitude of brunch cocktails.

I always wanted to scoop up the most eggs. My competitiveness wasn’t about being greedy or wanting all the candy, it was more about the praise and approval I’d get for finding the most eggs, and this particular year was no exception. The egg hunt began and I’m sure I chop-blocked your poor uncle to get a head start. I started scooping up eggs left and right, I bet your Grana told me to “share” or “let Kyle find some too” at some point… I’m also sure I barely listened. Then it happened… I turned over a silver colander that was casually placed in the middle of my grandmother’s manicured yard and there it was. The big egg.

Each year at our egg hunts there was an egg that was three or four times the size of the rest and usually had the best candy and money in it. This year I’d found it. I got all the praise from my mom and my cousins and brother, I was elated. I won.

Cut to our egg hunt the next year. Still riding the high of being the finder of the big egg the year before, I was confident that I was looking at a repeat performance. Only that’s not what happened. When my cousin Stefani shouted that she’d found the big egg, my aunts and uncles started clapping and I immediately burst into tears. I think I even quit looking for eggs and ran upstairs to my grandmother’s bedroom to cry on the bed in my itchy Easter dress.

A few minutes later my mom came up to comfort me. She probably made something up about how the eggs that I’d found were better anyway. Then, my sweet cousin came in to share half of the contents of her big egg with me. I couldn’t believe it. I’d gloated the year before, and pitched a fit and taken away from her victory with my temper tantrum, yet here she was sharing the big egg with me. What a lesson.

Lila Clare, I see how I was as a child so much more clearly as I watch you grow. I see the things that frustrate you and it pains me because I remember all of those feelings. You are competitive, you are a perfectionist, you love to be the first, the best, the center of attention.

These are not bad things at all, in fact they are great things. You expect to be successful in all that you do, so you will be. You won’t accept less and this is one of the many things that makes you great. But Lila please, PLEASE know that it is okay to not be perfect. It is okay to not always win, it is okay to give yourself a break, it is okay to not find the big egg. The lessons you will learn when things don’t go exactly as you’d planned are how you grow.

I wish I could save you from all the anguish that you will put yourself through trying to be perfect and pushing yourself to be the best at everything you do, but I know that I can’t. It’s who I am and it’s who you are too.

My Darling, perfection isn’t the important thing. Your wins don’t define you, but your outlook and the way you make people feel certainly do… I have no clue what was in the big egg that I found that year, but I remember so vividly the smile on my cousin’s face as she came in to share her big egg with me the next year. That is what a winner does, those are the things that deserve praise, not finding the most eggs.

I know this lesson will take years to sink in, hopefully before you’re (almost) 38 like I am. This Easter know that I am proud of you for who you are, no matter how many eggs you find… and please leave at least one for your sister.

I love you first,

Momma