Happy Easter – Buona Pasqua
(in Italian, if you couldn’t deduce that ☺)
We are in Italy and alone. I feel like I should feel sad or lonely, but I don’t. And that in itself has me reflecting, because Easter hasn’t felt like much of a holiday to me for a long time.
And yet here I am, in the hills of Tuscany on Easter morning.
When I was a kid, I went to Catholic school—St. Brendan’s in Brooklyn, New York. I loved Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday all the way through Easter and the vacation week that followed.
It wasn’t because of Jesus, exactly, or even religion. I loved the tradition, the pomp, the feeling that spring was on its way, the dressing up.
Being in Catholic school made it all feel special. The church was right next to the school, and for religion class we were often inside—looking around, practicing music, getting familiar with it. I knew what it looked like during Mass and in between. I loved how, in preparation for Easter, everything got cleaned and polished. The priests, who lived in the rectory on the block and were always kind and involved, would bring out their special robes. I had a crush on one of the younger priests—Father Michael.
Starting on Palm Sunday, the church was all dolled up. There were special Masses all week that were different and, to me, kind of fun—even if the topic was somber. For the short time I was in the youth choir, there were lots of practices and lots of reasons to go to church and hang out with my friends. By Wednesday of Holy Week we had a half day, and then were off for the next week and a half. As a kid, that felt magical.
Easter itself was always a little anticlimactic. The build-up was over. But there were egg hunts around the apartment, Easter baskets, and those gigantic Italian chocolate eggs my dad always found for my brothers and me—each with a toy inside. The toy was never anything special, but as a kid, any toy lit up my heart.
When we moved from Brooklyn to Long Island in middle school, Easter and Holy Week were never quite the same. I went to public school and didn’t spend time around church anymore. We still went to Mass on Easter, but we became the kind of Catholics who mostly showed up on Christmas and Easter. Going to church now required a car instead of a three-block walk, and we didn’t know anyone there.
Still, Easter was fun. We colored eggs, got baskets, received those chocolate eggs from my dad, gathered with extended family, and had a special meal that included rabbit—yes, rabbit, like the Easter bunny.
Years went by. I grew up and had children young. Until then, I hadn’t really experienced Easter without kids involved—either being one or having them. It was always about eggs, bread, a great meal, and extended family. Holy Week still carried that feeling of something special, even though I was no longer part of church festivities and rarely attended them.
And even though I no longer got those giant, mostly hollow chocolate eggs, my father always made sure my kids and their cousins did. I’m not even sure if the toy was still inside—my kids might know. What I do remember is trying to get the egg home intact and usually finding it cracked from the car ride. It always felt like too much chocolate, so I’d break it into smaller pieces, freeze it, and use it later for cookies or some other dessert in the spring.
It wasn’t until I got divorced and the family split up that Easter really started to lose its shape. Different traditions. Not always having the kids. The standard divorce agreement doesn’t even count Easter as a holiday.
And as I got older, I started to notice that Easter isn’t really considered a holiday at all. It falls on a Sunday, so there’s no time off from work. Even people who work that day don’t get special pay like they do on actual holidays. In the United States, Easter comes with plenty of fun—egg hunts, baskets, the Easter bunny—but the day itself doesn’t carry the same weight. It feels more like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Over time, it started to feel less special. Holy Week stopped registering, the kids never really loved it, and somewhere along the way it became just another Sunday—one where I might text people, but didn’t make plans or go to church. Not because I didn’t want to, exactly, but because I’d feel like a total hypocrite showing up.
My father, who passed away last August, always loved Easter. Being here now, in his mother country, I can see it from his perspective. It feels like a bigger deal here—no Easter bunny, no egg hunts—but the bakeries are full, and those giant hollow eggs he always brought us are everywhere.
I can’t help but look at them and tear up a bit. He wasn’t always my favorite person, but once he was just a young boy excited about chocolate and toys like the rest of us. That’s what he passed on.
Those eggs feel different to me now.
And yet this morning, I sit far from family in the hills of Tuscany. An Italian sauce simmers on the stove. I hear birds outside. Soon we’ll pack up lunch and head down to the pool to celebrate Pasqua with other expats who also have no family here.
Today—between the sauce simmering, the quiet hills, and sharing pranzo with others who are also far from home—I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Not the old version of Easter.
But something just as real.
Happy Easter to my pops in heaven.
