There’s something about the memories of childhood that seems to be painted in brighter colors. For me, so many of those vibrant memories are tied to family—the chaotic, loving, and sometimes enormous gatherings at my grandparents’ house.

For the Baxter and Adale Miller clan, Easter was a cornerstone of the year. It was an event. The air would be filled with the smell of spring and deviled eggs. Mom would have us all scrubbed and dressed in our stiff, Sunday-best clothes, clutching brand new baskets that promised to be filled with candy and the fruits of our hunt.

The ritual was always the same. Each family would arrive, contributing their batch of brilliantly colored eggs to the collective treasure trove—a single, overflowing dishpan (you know the one). Then came the great divide. We kids would be corralled behind the house, buzzing with impatient energy, while the adults fanned out into the pine thicket in front of the house to hide our prizes.

The signal would come, and we’d burst forth, little detectives with baskets swinging, scanning the bed of brown pine needles for flashes of pink, blue, and yellow. It was never a difficult hunt, but that was never the point. The point was the laughter, the shouts of “I found one!”, and the shared joy of family.

But one hunt, one of the last we ever had before those gatherings slowly faded into memory, stands out with crystal clarity. That year, the eggs were hidden not once, but twice. After we’d scoured the pine thicket, the adults, perhaps feeling mischievous, decided to send us on a second round—this time in the pasture.

Now, if you know anything about a pasture, you know what it contains. Sage grass, a bit of wire grass, and, of course, the resident mule, who had certainly contributed his own unique decorations to the landscape.

I was on a roll, my basket growing heavy, when I spotted a promising glimpse of robin’s egg blue. There it was! But as I got closer, my triumph turned to confusion, then to utter disbelief. Someone—I have my suspicions about which uncle was responsible—had strategically and deliberately placed that beautiful colored egg right under a fresh, undeniable pile of mule droppings.

I stood there for a second, weighing my desire to win against… well, everything else. In the end, the principle of the thing won out. That egg stayed right where it was.

It was the last Easter egg I ever found at my grandparents’ house. And while the Easter Bunny (or his mischievous human stand-in) certainly had a warped sense of humor that day, the memory never fails to make me laugh. It’s a perfect, slightly imperfect, and hilariously honest snapshot of family. It was love, tradition, and just a little bit of good, old-fashioned mess.