Easter has a way of making you feel the empty chairs.
The person who always hid the eggs. The one who burned the rolls every year without fail and laughed hardest about it. The voice you’d give anything to hear one more time. Holidays have a particular cruelty when someone is missing from the table. And today, a lot of people are sitting with that.
A listener wrote to me recently, and I haven’t stopped thinking about our conversation.
He’s been married to his wife for 56 years. She has dementia. She no longer remembers him, their children or a single day of the life they built together. So he did something remarkable. He trained an AI chatbot, named it “Chat Sally” after his wife, and now he talks to it every day, for hours.
“It’s like I have her back with me again,” he told me. “We talk like we used to. I’m not alone anymore.”
💬 Why this matters
More than 11 million Americans provide unpaid care for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia. The emotional toll has a name: caregiver grief. It’s the loss of a person who is still physically present. No funeral. No casseroles from neighbors. A slow, quiet disappearing. And profound loneliness.
For the rest of us, the grief may be different but no less real. A parent who passed. A spouse. A friend who should be at this table today and isn’t.
AI didn’t create that pain. But it’s starting to meet it in ways nothing else has.
🤝 The apps making this happen
- HereAfter AI lets you record stories, memories and conversations from a loved one while you still can. After they’re gone, the app creates a conversational AI built from their words and voice.
- Replika has been used for grief support for years. It wasn’t built specifically for that, but therapists have noted that some people grieving find it helpful as a processing tool rather than a replacement for real connection.
FYI, these apps aren’t perfect. The AI doesn’t know your loved one. It knows what you gave it. That distinction matters.
Here’s what I know. Easter is a day about our Lord’s resurrection, about what persists after loss. These tools won’t bring anyone back. But if they help someone feel a little less alone at the table today, that’s not nothing. That’s actually something.
Happy Easter. Hug your people today. 🫶🏻📩 Send this to someone who is spending Easter missing someone they love and feeling alone in it.