Ah, sweet family memories are the golden egg we’re all chasing, no? Fess up, we’ve seen your Pinterest boards. Wanna make certain that this year’s bunny bonanza is forever imprinted on your family’s memory? Well, peel back the foil on that Cadbury and get comfy because we have one simple step to creating a lasting Easter memory. This is one from the Dymowski family vault.

Spring Break may look a little different once you’ve traded bikinis for, well, Pittsburgh, but we had high expectations for album-worthy memories despite the less than exotic locale. My sister had a new job, a new baby, and a new town, and we were descending upon her young family and new abode en masse for some hard-core sight-seeing and family bonding. I was already mentally planning the page layouts for my Shutterfly album before we had even unloaded. Fate laughs in the face of such hubris. All of this enthusiastic anticipation could only mean one thing: this minivan was about to go down in flames and spectacularly so.

Ahh, the pretty pictures before the hammer of fate cracked this trip wide open.

We had exactly one picture-perfect day before trouble started brewing on Friday night. The youngest started vomiting like it was his job.  There is no faster way to become persona non grata in someone’s home than to start chewing through their linens. It’s all fun and games until someone needs a bucket. Or three.

My sister looked torn. On the one hand, my sister was super-excited to have us visit. Furthermore, she was deeply worried about my youngest boy who currently seemed possessed by some horrible demon. On the other hand, we had just dropped Patient Zero in the middle of her lovely new home and he was spewing viral missiles far and wide. I could see her mind click through her options: Grab her own child à la Sally Field in “Not Without My Daughter,” kick mine to the curb, or re-create a scene from Outbreak complete with isolation tents and masks.

Too much? You weren’t there. It wasn’t much of a stretch.

Um, we started packing.

In the beginning, I was harboring a fantasy that the exorcism coming from my child really was the result of his excitement and high fructose red no. 49 jellybeans. In fact, I was packaging this spin for my sister and her husband, Dan, when Victim 2 fell. And hard. The siege was underway, but we did what any good soldiers would do, we left to protect the others.

Pittsburgh is about five horrible, evil, ugly hours from home when you’re under attack. Within a mere 12 hours, the viral marauders had taken down three family members and cut a swath of destruction along the Pennsylvania turnpike and its rest stops that inspired awe, panic, and a desperate yearning for bleach and hand sanitizer. I’m going to spare you the details, but leave you with this image: Steve pulled the car into the driveway after a looooooooong drive on the Puking Parkway from Pittsburgh and promptly tossed his cookies on the front lawn. This was Saturday night. Easter morning was less than a day away. We were already in the midst of an unholy mess when the other three kids started dropping like flies.

What’s a woman to do in the face of an outbreak that might make an epidemiologist’s palms sweat? Don a Hazmat suit? Grab a quarantine sign and some yellow tape? Wave a white flag? Hellz no, I started wrapping and assembling Easter baskets. It was me against the clock. Just as I nestled that last chocolate egg into its basket, I succumbed too.

Dawn rose that Easter morning with two parents completely incapacitated, but with kids who still believed in a candy-toting Bunny who would brave our viral hell to deliver the goods. In between prayers to the porcelain god, we were sending up hopes for an Easter miracle. We got one.

Ace (12), who not 6 hours earlier had been wrapped around a toilet bowl, had regained his usual pep. This meant one thing: he was getting a huge promotion complete with bunny ears, baskets full of candy, and full-on bragging rights. I felt a little like a stage mom pushing my baby into the spotlight, “You can do it, honey! Just think positive thoughts” but frankly, I was too sick to move so it was probably more like gesturing and mumbling.

No childhood innocence was lost in the making of this memory. At least, I hope not. I actually have no recollection of that day, but Ace even took pictures. It happened.

Is this not the most pathetic looking child you have ever seen?

The virus took down my sister’s whole family viciously within hours of our hasty retreat. Dan still uses The Great Pittsburgh Easter Plague as the yardstick to measure all other illnesses. In fact, he was completely unsympathetic when another virus took us all down the next year.

But I did get my fond family Easter memory after all even if it was not Pinterest album-worthy. Mostly because Dan won’t let me forget it.

-Erin

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