It will be with the "heaviest of hearts" that Michael Gallagher is going to attend this afternoon's interdenominational service for the 29 victims of the Omagh bomb.
As bereaved relatives will be laying wreaths in the town's garden of remembrance on the second anniversary of the atrocity, memories of his bubbly 21-year-old son Adrian will be flooding back, making the day a difficult one to bear.
"It is going to be nerve-racking and I am not sure yet how we are going to get through the day. Everyday life is hard enough because there are reminders of Adrian everywhere, he is still so much part of the fabric of our house, but today will be something else. It will bring back that terrible day so clearly."
As Catholic and Protestant church bells will chime across the Co Tyrone town followed by a minute's silence at 3.09 p.m. - the exact time when the Vauxhall Cavalier car containing the 500 lb "Real IRA" bomb exploded on August 15th, 1998, - families from Northern Ireland, the Republic and Spain will remember the loved ones they lost, each with their own memories.
Mr Gallagher remembers his 6 ft 2 in tall son who "lived for cars" and worked with his father in the family garage. Adrian was the only boy, spoilt by his two sisters Cathy and Sharon and his mum Patricia, who suffered a double blow when her 82-year-old father died only 10 days after Adrian.
"Adrian shared his birthday - October 2nd - with his grandfather. His grandfather never spoke again after Adrian's death. I really don't know how my wife copes - Adrian and her father were the two men she loved most in the world," Mr Gallagher says, adding that it has been the family's close-knit nature which has helped them to get on with life.
He has been actively involved in the Omagh Trust, set up in support of the bereaved families.
"I find that being involved with the Omagh Trust is doing something therapeutic and positive. It is my way of coping. If you live in the midst of evil and don't speak out you become part of that evil," he adds.
The single most painful factor in the families' grief is that nobody has so far been brought to justice for the atrocity, although one man has been charged in connection with it.
"This is an open sore for all the families. We are very disappointed that despite the RUC's and gardai's best efforts, nobody has been brought to justice over this. Unless the general will is there within the republican community and their political representatives to come forward with information, the police on both sides of the Border are getting nowhere. Sinn Fein have gained so much from the peace process that they have a responsibility here.
"They cannot just choose which atrocity to condemn and which one to fall silent on," Mr Gallagher insists.
Last month's paramilitary prisoner releases have been a bitter pill to swallow for the families, he adds. "If it gives us the peace we need then it has to be welcomed, but given how charitable the victims' families have been and how triumphalist and insensitive many of the prisoners have conducted themselves upon their release, it has added to our heartache.
"These prisoners might see themselves as victims, too, but they are victims of their own making."
The fact that this year's remembrance service is on a much smaller scale than last year's first anniversary might not be a bad thing, Mr Gallagher says. "Of course, some of us might feel that our loved ones are being forgotten, but then if a big service was announced and people didn't turn up that would be even more disappointing. So maybe it's better to let it slip away quietly."