Easter without

Marcie and I had our own reasons for celebrating holidays, and our own rituals. There were presents at Christmas, candy for the neighborhood kids at Halloween, and all of the standard fare of American holidays. But we also had special traditions.

Easter had the advantage of always falling on Sunday. This meant that we had the morning together usually, then the evening was spent with relatives, hers or mine, depending on the year. But the mornings...

Easter morning usually meant a delicious breakfast and some languor. That time of ease always made the holiday tolerable, no matter the evening destination.

We always brought each other cards and candy,usually See's. We would exchange those gifts and others, and generally reflect, sometimes over mimosas or screwdrivers. Oh, yes... drinking a bit sometimes was in the plan, usually well before noon.

Without fail, we spent the balance of the morning of the first holiday of spring in bed every year.

Last year was a little different. We spent the time in bed simply napping. I remember she wanted peeps, the marshmallow candies. I bought her some. She may have just wanted to taste them one more time, but she did not say as much.

I held her, hoping for a better Easter this year, when our languor would be of a more lively sort.

Needless to say, it did not feel like Easter today. I was not good company for my father, who met me for breakfast, though I tried.

I was just caught up in her, dazed all day. No matter the distraction, a pounding workout with probably way too much weight, a vegetarian chili that took hours to prepare and cook, numerous little tasks, they all failed.

All I could think about was kissing her lips from around a chocolate creme egg from See's, something we made into a tradition after she kept half of one on her lips one morning at our little loveshack downtown on Ninth.

We kissed and it went everywhere from there, and Marcie said "Okay, so next year, that will be my signal that I am ready," she said in the afterglow.

Some years in lingerie, some in her skirt or still in pajamas, she would wiggle a piece of her chocolate egg from her lips when she caught my eye. I looked forward to that signal all Easter morning for thirteen years.

Now, it's just another something we won't get to do together again.