The assignment for we little learners in the second grade was to choose an item that one could make into an Easter basket.
Seriously.
This was decades before the bestseller, "BRAIDING SWEETGRASS" and besides I had neither the skill set nor the want to for that option. I pondered ---- an ice cube tray??? Lots of dyed eggs and jelly beans and M&M's would fit quite nicely....a hat??? that seemed a bit too obvious....my baseball glove??? ...I really didn't want to get the plastic grass all through my mitt and nor did I want melted chocolate......alas.....I was stumped.
The more frustrated I became, the more I whined; those were the signals for the family and namely the women to step in and offer wisdom and help. My Gram brought an old black dress shoe. "Here," she said, "this will work. I bet no other child would think of this. I wore these shoes to many an Easter Sunday service.
I liked the idea. No other kid would even think of this and certainly no other kid would even have access to my gram's old, black dress shoe.
Smiling (most likely at my positive response to women's dress shoes) my mum said, "We need to decorate it, put some bright colors on it." She then proceeded to bring out the old Whitman's Sampler box now used to store little plastic bottles of paint, brushes, pipe cleaners, yarn, crayons, markers.
I set to work painting, twisting pipe cleaners, stuffing in the neon pink plastic grass; my mum added the little chicken and my gram finished the piece with a lilac Easter hat.
The photo at the beginning of this post is the actual shoe.
All these many years later having experienced the passings and risings of my fellow members of the shoe decorating team, this Easter basket from an old dress shoe remains the perfect symbol of Easter....the message of Easter is heard and carried and journeyed through our steps and rolls and travels.
Christ is Risen!
Carry the message well.
Carry the message faithfully.
Be the message of hope and life and joy!
Happy Easter!