Will You Be Alone This Easter? Is That Okay?

If you don’t do church, is it just another day?

Holidays can be tricky for those of us living alone. We just survived Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and now we have Easter.

This holiday means different things to different people. Christians celebrate Jesus rising from the dead and the end of the somber season of Lent. Their activities center around church services, including outdoor sunrise services.

For Catholics like me, Easter is a marathon, with four days of Masses in a row as we commemorate the Last Supper, Jesus’ crucifixion, and his resurrection. We go from quiet songs and all the statues covered in purple cloth to candlelight processions, ringing bells, and singing “Alleluia” in a church full of lilies. New church members are baptized, and vows are renewed. It’s the highlight of our year.

I’ll be at the piano a lot this week. And then?

Many Americans will go out for brunch or gather the family for a dinner featuring ham or lamb. They will shower the kids with baskets of goodies from the Easter Bunny, send them hunting for hidden eggs, and dress them in fancy outfits. It’s a big party.

But what if you’re alone? What if you have nowhere to go?

After church, I will enjoy an ordinary Sunday. Clergy and church musicians around the world just want to relax. Some years, I do some cleaning in the afternoon. This year, I’m going to the Sunday open mic at Cafe Chill. I’m planning to make myself burritos for supper, and I bought myself a piece of cake.

Easter is full of memories for me, some of them painful. It was on Easter Sunday that I learned my mother had cancer. She died three months later. It was Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, when my husband died. On a more recent Easter, my father was in the hospital in bad shape and I spent most of the day by his side. He would be gone in a few months, too.

I remember joyful Easters at my old church in California, but these days, the holiday is bittersweet.

We all have memories of days that make us want to pull inside and let the tears fall. Easter weekend is that kind of time for me. Besides, it seems more appropriate for Christians to spend the day quietly appreciating the miracle of rising from the dead and pondering what it means, especially in a world with so much turmoil.

But there is an expectation that we must do something special. Throw a party, color eggs, buy a new dress, share a fancy meal. That’s fine. Even if you’re not religious, it’s wonderful that winter is over and everything is in bloom. Why not celebrate?

But if you’d rather hike, work on a project at home, or watch a movie, that’s okay, too.

Whether and how anyone celebrates Easter is a personal decision. Being alone gives us choices. We don’t have to deal with children hyped up by pre-Easter advertising and tales of what the other kids are doing. We don’t have to please a partner who wants something different from what we want.

I actually don’t want a big to-do with family or friends this year. If our sunny weather holds up, I might walk on the beach, play my guitar, or read on the deck after the open mic, and I will be content. The time spent at church and that cake in the freezer are enough.

At the store yesterday, my cart was definitely the cart of a woman who lives alone. Small portions, no party food, while other women were grabbing huge quantities of meat, vegetables, wine, and chips. They had that stressed “I’ve got so much to do” look while I felt relaxed. One piece of cake, a salad, tortillas, cheddar cheese, a pound of ground beef.

In the U.S., Easter is a day for the Easter bunny, colored eggs, chocolate candy, and family gatherings. If you live elsewhere, how do you celebrate the day? If you live alone, what do you do for Easter? If you could do anything you want this weekend, what would you do? Why not do that?

Additional reading

Top 9 Popular Easter Traditions in the USA

How Americans plan to celebrate Easter | aytm consumer insights

Easter traditions around the world – Insight Vacations

Photo by Eric Heininger on Unsplash

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How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available now at your favorite bookseller. The Kindle price has just been reduced! Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.