For the vast majority of their very young lives, Jordan and Grace Burrows have begun their Easter mornings with an egg hunt at Lookout Valley Baptist Church.
Later in the day, similar hunts have often surfaced at the homes of their grandparents and elsewhere.
"All this candy they can't possibly eat," said their mother, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball coach Katie Burrows, with a laugh as she discussed such sugary largesse. "And toys. Lots of little toys that Mom and Dad don't want them to bring home. Things that get stepped on later and thrown away."
It has been the lament of parents everywhere since at least the arrival of the hinged plastic egg, which was first patented in 1978 and has come to be the preferred hiding place on Easter morn for everything from jelly beans to Hershey's kisses to diabolical tiny toys that seem to maniacally attach themselves to the bottoms of unsuspecting adults' bare feet.
But thanks to the novel coronavirus and the resulting pandemic, that won't be happening this Easter at Lookout Valley Baptist or pretty much any other place of worship. No public parks either. Social distancing is making this the most unique Easter of our lives.
"They know that's not the true meaning of Easter," Burrows said of her daughters' egg hunts. "They know Christ was crucified on the cross, and on the third day he rose. But they also love the Easter Bunny. So they'll be disappointed this year that our church won't have an Easter egg hunt, but they'll understand why. We're all just trying to abide by the guidelines."
Instead, like so many other churches in the Chattanooga area and across the country, Lookout Valley Baptist's Easter service will be shown online on both YouTube and Facebook, with viewing video instead of gathering together the safest and most responsible way for the church's members to combat the deadly virus.
And because of the human race's endless capacity for creativity and innovation, there are surely similar adjustments within the Jewish faith regarding the current Passover, and there will be throughout the Muslim world when it begins Ramadan later this month.
Those connections, through Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Zoom and anything else that links us over the worldwide web, will almost certainly help ease the sense of isolation and frustration so many of us feel these days.
Or as Burrows said of her unexpected time at home with Jordan, who's almost 6, and 4-year-old Grace: "I'm going crazy. The slightest little thing irritates me. I'm an extrovert. I need adult interaction."
But she also said of the world's new normal of visiting with her players and coaches and pretty much everyone else save her immediate family through a computer screen: "It's made us analyze how we can always get better in reaching out to players and recruits. We're beginning to look at doing more interactive stuff. It makes us see how imperfectly we've been running things."
Adjust and adapt. It's what all good coaches do, and Burrows, by turning a 1-13 start into a shared regular-season Southern Conference title this past winter, has proven beyond a doubt she's a really good coach.
Staff file photo by Robin Rudd / UTC women's basketball coach Katie Burrows helped the Mocs turn things around after a 1-13 start this past season to earn a share of the Southern Conference's regular-season title.Of course, she also said of this new role spending far more time at home with husband Nick and the kids: "I'm not a very good stay-at-home mom. I have a great appreciation for those who can do that, but that's not the way I was built. I've probably cooked more in the last month than I had in the last year. Even then, it's mostly pizza. Let's just say we're doing our part to support local restaurants by getting takeout as often as possible."
She also has spent time working with Jordan on her ball-handling skills, and she and Nick have become big fans of "Designated Survivors" on Netflix.
Then there's her job, which continues through the phone and online.
"I called a Zoom meeting of the team the other day," she said, "and I told them, 'I'm doing this selfishly because I want to see your faces.' I hope at some point we can get them back on campus, because I feel like we had to leave things unfinished at the end of the season. Not just basketball, but relationally. This was such a special group, and it all ended so abruptly."
Like all college basketball coaches these days, she also worries about what will happen at UTC's mid-major level if the NCAA, as expected, passes a one-time transfer rule that would grant immediate eligibility to such players.
"I'm not worried about my kids right now," she said. "We've had some turnover here, but I don't expect much with this group. But down the road, if this passes, there's going to be no consequence for transferring. You could see a scenario where you're starting over every signing period."
But first, everyone and everything is going to have start over when the threat of COVID-19 has decreased. Schools. Businesses. Churches. Nonessential government services. Everyone. Everything.
So for now, like so many of the rest of us, Katie, Nick and their daughters will watch their church's Easter service online. Afterward, they hope to gather, albeit keeping their six-foot distance, with close family. Some sort of meal will be served. There might even be an improvised Easter egg hunt for the little ones.
Then another week of social distancing and working from home will begin. Said Burrows, her words sound advice for us all: "This is making me become a lot more patient."
Egg-xactly.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.