Easter will be different for me this year too. Easter was the holiday that Mom and Dad always had at their house with the entire clan.

Great food, lively company, and always an egg hunt. Dad would hide the eggs and each one was worth a different value when cashed in by Mom with her coin-bag/change purse. All the grand-children (some in early twenties still hunted). They also helped the younger ones find eggs too.

Because Mom was a woman of the Depression, she cared about how she spent her loot. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> Mom's adding up and giving out the cash was so much fun and always a laugh. The kids would try to rip her off, but there was no ripping Mom off! Boy do I miss her fun ways and how she horsed around with all of us. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> She was great with the grand-children because of her sense of humor.

One year I joked that a certain egg was worth a trip to Disney and my one nephew believed me. I felt horrible when my sister had to tell him I was kidding. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> He's been to Disney too many times to count anyway!

Mom died March 17, 2001. That Easter all of us went to my sister's house and had the hunt and a balloon ascension. Everyone wrote their mesages to Mom and folded them and put them in their balloons. We stood outside on a beautiful spring day and sent them to the heavens to be with Mom. Environmentalists wouldn't be happy with us, but it was such a meaningful event that we couldn't do without it.

This year Dad is taking off with one of my sisters to visit a grandchild in another state. The clan won't be getting together as a whole this year. Tradidtion will be broken, but life does go in and God remains good to us.