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Other animals usually take a back seat to bunnies on Easter. Not at Kai and Delilah Finelli’s house.
Sure, the Easter Bunny hid eggs in their front yard last Saturday night, and left personal notes for Kai, who is almost 2, and Delilah, 4, on the front step of their home in Schenley Farms.
But the only sign of a bunny on Easter was a pair of long, white ears worn first by their mother, Heather Long, and later by Doc, the family’s miniature pot-bellied pig.
Last Sunday afternoon, while Kai was taking a nap, Delilah searched for plastic eggs filled with candy while the 125-pound pig hunted in the grass for tiny bits of pig food and bright yellow dandelions, his favorite snack.
But Doc wasn’t the one who chewed a hole in one green egg and ate the Hershey’s kiss inside.
“We have some savage squirrels in our yard,” said Heather, laughing.
She gets a special joy from watching her children open Christmas presents, discover their Easter baskets and shake plastic eggs filled with candy.
When she was pregnant with Kai, Heather, 42, was diagnosed with large B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She began treatment shortly after he was born and is still in treatment at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.
Heather’s face shined on Easter Sunday as she and her partner, Dr. Pete Finelli, watched Delilah run across the yard, peeking beneath bushes and occasionally plucking out an egg to wave it and joyously call out, “I found one!”
She quickly gathered 22 of the 25 eggs hidden by volunteers from Starlight Strays Sanctuary, a Penn Hills-based nonprofit that works to reduce cat overpopulation through trap-neuter-return practices, provide veterinary care and help cats with unique needs.
As part of their Egg My Yard fundraiser, cats in foster care walk and swish their tails in watercolors to create colorful keepsakes for some of the kids on their list. Two of the paintings were left with the Easter Bunny’s notes for the Finellis. The volunteers worked quickly on the night before Easter.
“I kept looking out but I never saw them,” Heather said. “They were really quiet.”
By the time Kai awoke from his nap, Delilah was methodically opening the eggs in her yellow chicken basket to inventory the Starbursts, Kisses and other candy inside. Kai ate some and gave a few pieces to his sister, me and anyone else within range.
“He’s into giving things lately,” said his father.
Pete, 42, will finish his medical residency in June at Trinity Health System in Steubenville, Ohio, He loves watching his children hunt for Easter eggs in the same house where he lived with his siblings and mother, Total Traffic radio host Carol Finelli Brown.
Heather doesn’t remember many Easter egg hunts while growing up in Murrysville, but she treasures every holiday tradition with her children.
“This was the first year that Delilah was excited and knew what was coming. She and Kai got their Easter baskets when they woke up. The Easter bunny put them in a pirate ship,” she said, noting the inflatable toy is big enough for Kai to sail in.
“It has made me more excited, the magical part of the holidays, the anticipation of Santa and the Easter Bunny.”
Since Heather’s cancer diagnosis, she has tried to “go all out” on holidays, birthdays and other celebrations with her children. She took them to New York City in December to see the Radio City Rockettes and Delilah to a Plain White T’s concert in Lawrenceville in February.
The 4-year-old wore a T-shirt that said “My name is Delilah” and she danced as singer Tom Higgenson sang the band’s hit, “Hey There Delilah.”
“Whatever may happen down the road, I want these to be memorable times for them,” she said.
Kevin Kirkland: kkirkland@post-gazette.com
First Published: April 7, 2024, 9:30 a.m.