The Easter Bunny By Beth H. Arbogast When I was a little girl, every Sunday my family of six would put on their best clothes and go to Sunday School and then church. The kids in elementary school would all meet together to sing songs, and then later divide into groups based on their ages.

One Easter Sunday, all the kids arrived with big eyes and big stories about what the Easter Bunny had brought. While all of the kids shared their stories with delight, one young boy, whom I shall call Bobby, sat sullenly. One of the teachers, noticing this, said to him, "And what did the Easter Bunny bring you?" He replied, "My mom locked the door on accident so the Easter Bunny couldn't get inside."

This sounded like a reasonable idea to all of us kids, so we kept on going with the stories. My mom knew the true story, though. Bobby's mom was a single parent, and she suspected that they just couldn't afford the Easter Bunny.

After Sunday school was over, everyone went off to church. When my dad came to meet us my mom announced that we were going home instead. At home, she explained that to make Bobby feel better, we were going to pretend to be the Easter Bunny and make a basket of our goodies for him and leave it at church. We all donated some of our candies to the basket, and headed back to church. There, mom unzipped his coat, hung the basket over the hanger, and zipped up the coat and attached a note.

Dear Bobby,

I'm sorry I missed your house last night. Happy Easter.

Love, The Easter Bunny

Easter in Jackson By Allison C. Miller The pounding rain began in the middle of the night. The people of Jackson, Ohio awoke to the sound then went back to sleep. The next day the rain continued, and the water began to rise. Statistics said Jackson floods once every one hundred years, but no one believed this would be the flood of the century.

People were evacuated from their homes to higher ground, leaving everything behind. Buildings in the low-lying areas were immersed in water. People watched as dogs, cats, cows and other animals were swept away. Cars and trucks were carried miles from their homes. The people felt helpless as they watched Mother Nature show her power.

My roommate, Susan, was home in Jackson that weekend of March third, 1997. When she returned to our house in "The Ghetto" of the University of Dayton, she told us of the floods and how her powder blue Beretta had been destroyed. Her grandmother was rescued while standing on her bed holding her oxygen tank, immersed to her chest in water.

I was a senior at the university, in the second phase of my student-teaching experiences. I worried about lesson plans, finding a job, where to go after graduation and leaving my friends. My worries suddenly seemed to pale in comparison to the problems of Jackson.

Susan returned to her sixth-grade student-teaching experience the following Monday. She told the story to her students and showed them pictures from the newspaper. Her inspired and compassionate students took action. They stopped raising money for their trip to Camp Kern and began raising money for the flood victims. They sold lollipops, wrote letters to the community asking for donations and collected their own money. Even first-graders donated money. Mountains of clothes, furniture and food piled up. Susan's class made Easter baskets from shoeboxes and filled them with candy and toys as well as toothpaste, soap, toothbrushes and shampoo.

She and I loaded her mom's black Chevy Beretta to the ceiling with the Easter baskets. On the trip there, I wondered what I would see; I couldn't imagine losing almost everything. Dusk was beginning to set in, and I felt nervous when we arrived. My stomach dropped when I saw some houses reduced to the railroad ties that had been their foundation. The smell of river water permeated the air. No carpet, furniture, plumbing or appliances remained. Knowing that only days ago this had been someone's home pained my heart. How many children had grown up here? What kind of memories lingered? Would the house ever be rebuilt? The monster flood had dulled its roar and retreated, but its impact would be long-lasting.

We drove from house to house, knocking on doors, ready to begin our mission. I was filled with trepidation. Would families who had been devastated by floodwater want an Easter basket? The gesture was beginning to seem useless.

"Hello, I'm Susan Moore, and this is my friend, Allison. My sixth-graders at Pennyroyal Elementary made Easter baskets for you when they heard about the flooding because they wanted to help."

Their faces lit up as they opened their gifts. As we entered one home, a husband and wife were crouched over their floor with hammer and nails. When he opened the box, he began to cry. "I can't believe those kids did this. Let me give you some money for their school." As I glanced at what was left of his home, I could not believe his generous spirit. He eventually conceded to write a thank-you note instead.

One woman ran out to find us after opening her box, tears rolling down her face. "I collected bunny rabbits, and I lost them all in the flood. There was a small pink rabbit in my box. I can start my collection again. Thank you." The burly man standing next to her also had tears in his eyes.

My heart was warmed as I played the small role of messenger in this tribute to the good in the human spirit. So often we hear of the shortcomings of our youth, but these youngsters answered a cry for help and gave proof that generosity and love prevail.

Finding Your Easter Sunrise By Cindy Bollinger There is a stopping point in the North Carolina mountains called Pretty Place. Pull off the main road and follow a dirt one to a clearing, and there stands an open-air chapel on the side of the mountain. Simple concrete benches encompass a stone pulpit. The area is open on all sides so you can see the breathtaking beauty of the scenery. A feeling of reverence permeates the place. People talk quietly, as though in church, in this wonderful place of solitary reflection.

At Easter time about twenty years ago, a group of friends and I decided to attend the sunrise service at Pretty Place. I had always wanted to go but never managed. I was an emergency-room nurse and had to work on this particular Easter Sunday, too, but worked it out to go to the service, and then go to work my shift. We got up about 2:00 A.M. to make the drive to Pretty Place. We arrived in the dark, parked and proceeded toward the chapel. A huge gathering of people collected in and around the chapel. In darkness, a simple nondenominational church service was held including a hymn, a prayer and a short message.

I was content just to sit and enjoy the tranquility, the smell of earth and pine, and feel the coolness of the morning air on my skin. I heard the birds and the sounds of the woods around us and enjoyed the pleasure of being with my friends. The sky lightened as the day broke and a glowing orange ball began to appear as if it was rising out of the earth. One minute there was a gray canvas and the next, a glowing sphere of orange, yellow and pink rose, filling the sky. Then, more quickly than they had come, the crowd took their leave to return to the real world. I headed for work.

I arrived feeling peaceful and ready for the day. The ER was quiet, too. Since there were no patients, I began cleaning and restocking.

I heard the familiar announcement, "patient in the hall," and then the sound of a male voice calling for help in desperation and panic. I entered the hallway to see a man carrying a small, limp, breathless child. Traces of blood and discoloration smeared one side of her pale face. No other wounds were visible. The man handed me the little girl dressed in a frilly dress, lace-trimmed socks, patent-leather shoes and a crushed Easter bonnet. His words spilled out. He couldn't see her when he backed the family van out of the driveway. She was dressed and ready for church. She saw her daddy leaving. She ran behind him. She only wanted to go with her daddy.

I rushed her into critical care, leaving the father in the hallway. Someone would come shortly to get him to fill out the paperwork and show him to the family waiting room, not the usual waiting room, but the small, softly lit, private waiting room where families and friends await bad news and pray desperate prayers for the lives of their loved ones.

As the call of Code Blue went out over the hospital loudspeaker, a team gathered to do all that was possible to save this child. Her Easter clothes were cut away and she was intubated. We began CPR, started an IV, and gave her drugs to attempt to restart her heart and lungs. It soon became obvious her neck was broken. We continued to resuscitate her, doing everything within the power of man and medicine. We couldn't give up the life of this small child. Often a knowing, an intellectual process, says there is nothing to do, but the heart pushes us beyond this knowledge to try anyway. So try we did.

After the hopeless resuscitation ceased, I slowly removed the tubes with tears in my eyes, a huge lump in my throat and heaviness in my chest. We took care of the details of preparing her body for death and for her family to see her. The emergency-room doctor went to the family room. His words to the father started with, "Your little girl is dead. There was really nothing we could do, but we tried." He talked, trying to explain what had happened. He listened for a little while to give the father a chance to respond.

The cry we heard coming from this man as he was given the news still touches me at the core of my very being. Some of us have experienced the misfortunes in life that enable us to understand the pain and loss this man must have felt.

It's been twenty years since that Easter Sunday. I am married now and have four children of my own. I traded in the job of being a nurse for that of being a full-time mother and homemaker. Not an Easter has passed since that I do not remember that little girl in the arms of her father on that Easter Sunday. I can always recall the pain and agony of that father's cry at the news of the death of his daughter. Now, as a parent, I understand that cry in a way that I couldn't at that time.

Medical personnel must learn to deal with the pain and suffering of others in order to do their job. We witness human misery, loss of limb and life, loss of family and, at times, the horrible unspeakable things that people do to each other. My saving grace is always that when I remember that little girl dying, I also remember the profound experience of being at the Easter sunrise service. I'm glad that on that morning I made the effort to go. I remember the magnificence of that sunrise there on the side of a mountain and the awe I felt taking it all in.

I experienced two opposite ends of the spectrum of human emotion that day – wonder and despair, life and death, joy and suffering, breathtaking beauty and profound sadness. I wrap the beautiful memory of the sunrise service around me to protect me from the hurt I felt at the death of the little girl. That memory of the sunrise was the armor I carried into battle that day as I went to do my duty in the ER.

As a nurse or a doctor or anyone who deals with pain and suffering, we must care for ourselves in order to serve others. We cannot give water to others from an empty well. We must take time to refill the well – to find our Easter sunrise.

Inner Connections God gets the Glory...He gave the Gift

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2002