Easter Feels Different This Year
Missing my mom, reflecting on grief, and finding a different kind of resurrection
Today felt quiet.
Not empty… just different.
The windows were open just a bit.
A soft breeze coming through.
Wind chimes in the background.
And I found myself missing my mom.
Easter used to feel full in a very simple way.
Not church.
Not sermons.
Just family.
Easter baskets.
Egg hunts.
A meal around the table.
Games, laughter… time together.
My mom right there in the middle of it all.
It wasn’t centered around doctrine.
It was centered around connection.
And I think, in some way, that stayed with me.
Later in my life, I found my way into church.
I explored faith in a more structured way, trying to understand what I believed and where I belonged.
And I’m grateful for that part of my journey.
But sitting here today, I realize something quietly true:
The deepest meaning of this day… was never something I had to go find.
It was something I had already known.
This morning I pulled out some old photos.
The kind that hold moments you didn’t know would become sacred someday.
Her smile.
The way we gathered.
The life we lived inside those ordinary days.
And I let myself feel it.
The love.
The ache.
The gratitude.
All of it.
Easter is a day about resurrection.
About rising.
About life returning.
But today, I found myself holding that idea a little differently.
Not just as something that happened once, long ago…
but as something that happens within us.
What if resurrection isn’t only a story we’re told?
What if it’s something we live?
Every time we soften after pain.
Every time we move through grief.
Every time we release what no longer fits.
Every time we find our way back to ourselves.
That is a kind of rising.
A quiet, personal resurrection.
My understanding of faith has changed over the years.
Not in a way that feels like loss…
but in a way that feels like expansion.
I no longer believe we are born broken.
At my core, I feel something different now:
That we are already part of something sacred.
That the Divine lives within us… and around us… and through us.
That love is not something we earn.
It’s something we are.
I don’t feel the need to define exactly what is right or wrong anymore.
But I do find myself wondering…
What if God is bigger than we were taught?
What if the Divine isn’t confined to one path, one story, one way of understanding?
What if… all roads, when walked with sincerity, lead us back to the same source?
Today, I didn’t go to church.
But I don’t feel disconnected.
If anything… I feel closer.
Closer to my memories.
Closer to love.
Closer to something quiet and steady within me.
Maybe this is what resurrection looks like for me now.
Remembering.
Softening.
Coming home to myself again.
And trusting…
that nothing real is ever truly lost.
If today feels tender for you too…you’re not alone.
💜 Barb