A Blessed Easter on Spiritual Sunday

Today is not only Spiritual Sunday but it’s also Easter, the day Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the third day after his crucifixion.

But no matter what day Easter falls on, I will always remember 2024 Easter, the last Easter morning I spent with Rich. I thought I made it through my year of “firsts” but because Easter was later this year, I still had to go through my first Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday Day and now Easter. I will grieve every March 31st, the day God called Rich home and also every Easter. Lia and her grandmother made Rich and I this cross for Easter 2020 and Rich wrote this note with a rose on Easter 2021.

Rich’s Memory Garden

I do have something to be joyous about today and that is Rich’s Memory Garden. When my daughter and son-in-law came down the end of March to be with me, they helped plant a Snowball bush that my neighbors gave me. This was the start of the garden. The bush was planted then my daughter surprised me with the butterfly trellis behind it.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working steady and hoping I could get the garden done by Easter. The first step was to gather some other plants and my granddaughter Allison suggested to get blue flowers because Pop was a LA Dodger fan, He would always say, “Win or lose, it’s Dodger blue.” Next I added a few yellow ones to bring sunshine and happiness as Lia always says. I planted the row of the flowers in the back last summer, they are tall purple ones from my daughter Chris. I knew I needed an Angel in Rich’s garden and I found the perfect male Angel, I’ve named in Michael since that was Rich’s sponsor’s name at his Confirmation.

Along with the Angel statue, I also needed St. Francis of Assisi because that was one city we visited when we went to Italy and Rich loved nature and animals just like St. Francis did. The butterfly stone was at the garden center, the saying and the butterfly are perfect and my daughter and son-in-law gave me the memory stone for our anniversary last year.

A few days ago I was so excited when I called our local garden center and they had purple butterfly bushes in! I knew I needed a butterfly bush to complete the garden. When I sit outside, I see so much peace between Rich’s garden and my quiet corner. I can feel his presence with me.

I was so happy when I sat back and looked at all the love in Rich’s Memory Garden from everyone who helped it come together and it was completed just in time for Easter. Do you see the two large rocks in the center around the Snowball bush?

They are solar lights hidden in faux stones and was a last minute find at Costco yesterday. I love how Rich’s Memory Garden shines at night! Now the garden is complete!

Roses and Dodgers

I even had time to tidy up the rose bushes by the back bay window. I removed the edging and raked all the old mulch out. When I added the new mulch I didn’t want to but the black rubber edging back so I needed to find something quick, like that evening. I only had about 6 large landscaping stones and a few sections of landscape timbers and I knew that wasn’t enough. So as Snowball and I are walking around the yard thinking what I could use, Snowball headed to the corner of the yard where I had some branches piled up from when I cut a tree down last fall. PERFECT! I had enough pieces and all the right sizes to put them together for a border. I call this my Redneck border but I know Rich would love it because it’s definitely our country style.

I also added a beautiful statue of Angel wings with a cross and roses in the center, again the perfect finish.

When Rich would finish the yard work, he would sit in his blue chair with a can of Pepsi and talk with Snowball. To complete this area, I put his chair back with some of his LA Dodger items, it’s where they belong and where they will stay.

My heart is heavy today but it’s also filled with love knowing I got Rich’s Memory Garden completed for him on this day. I love you so much Rich and you are forever in my heart… until we meet again.

A blessed Easter to all who celebrate.