It’s Easter Sunday.

Another big family gathering day.

Another check mark on our Year of Firsts check list. Our first Easter without Richard.

I really hate these Year of Firsts check off items. But I’m pretty sure I’ll hate the Year of Seconds, and the Year of Thirds and on and on etc., etc., just as much.

It was a really beautiful spring day.

We started with Easter Mass at our church. As always on Easter, it was crowded, as the twice-a-year church goer’s showed up in force.

Most of us were dressed up for the occasion. Easter was one of the twice-a-year-I’ll-wear-dress-clothes days for Richard.

My sister and her husband had their whole family with them. We sat behind them. We as in Debbie and me. Sarah is in Texas. And Richard isn’t here.

But Richard wouldn’t have sat with us anyway. He always stood in the back of church. Standing back there usually meant he would get volunteered to be an usher when one of the people assigned for that mass failed to show up – which happens most weeks. He would sometime complain about having to usher so often, but he always went back for more.

After church we went to the cemetery. We took some candy for Richard and my mom. Yeah, I know it’s pretty silly to toss candy out on the ground at somebody’s grave, but that’s what we did. We’ll do it again I’m sure.

Later in the afternoon we went to the farm for a family get-together. Lot’s of food, lot’s of dogs and cats, but mostly lot’s of loving family.

The cousins shared a few more of their Richard stories with us. Really enjoyed that.

It was a very nice day. But like everyday since that awful day, it was missing something, and we were missing someone.

I was going to use the picture below as the spotlight image at the beginning of this post, but my fabulous daughter beat me to the punch. But he looked so cute, I had to share it here too.