Easter is upon us. The six weeks of Lent — generally pictured as a desert time, but here in Chicago more a time of cold, dark damp days this year — have given way to the glory of the resurrection and the triumph of eternal life. And though I’m writing this just after Palm Sunday, Accuweather is actually calling for a mild turn in conditions come Easter, with sun and temperatures climbing out of the 30s at last. It might even be enough to encourage my crocuses to bloom and the grass to turn green. But I don’t need any seasonal changes to know that Easter is coming; I can just listen to Teresa. “I have dinner, and I go to sleep, and next morning, Easter Bunny was here!” she’s been saying, in a charming childhood mix of verb tenses. Yes, I say, but not tonight, next week. Next week is Easter, and then you’ll wake up, and find the eggs the Easter Bunny hid, and go to church and go to your aunt’s house for dinner. See how I cleverly try to extend the focus of the holiday past the Easter Bunny? “And then I’ll see Kitty!” she says, somehow moving the focus back to soft and furry animals — this one, thankfully, not bearing candy. The fact is, the resurrection story is not soft and furry, or even warm and fuzzy. It starts with fear and torture and a brutal death and proceeds through confusion and bewilderment before finding glory and joy. No wonder when it comes to kids, we tend to go with the bunny. It turns out, the Easter Bunny has been around almost as long as Santa Claus — at least, as long as Santa in his current form. German immigrants brought the idea of a bunny who lays colored eggs to the Pennsylvania area in the mid-1900s; children would make nests out of their caps and bonnets in secluded corners of the house the night before Easter, and wake up to find colorful pastry or candy eggs. Apparently, the rabbit was a symbol of fertility (for obvious reasons) and new life, as were eggs, and the German faithful put the two together. In any case, I think it’s sweet — in both senses — that believers celebrate both Christ’s birth and resurrection with magnanimous characters who bring candy and gifts to children. What better way to teach the meaning of an undeserved gift? I asked Teresa the other night if she knew what we were celebrating at Easter, how Jesus rose from the dead, and she kind of looked at me like I was stating the obvious. “Like at church?” she prompted, as though I were the child, and a bit slow on the uptake. “We go to church on Easter?” Of course, I said. And then I went out to buy dye for the Easter eggs and paper “grass” for the Easter baskets.