During my college years, I spent two weeks in Paris with my boyfriend. As we strolled down a charming street, we encountered a mother and her two daughters. My gaze was instantly drawn to the older girl, who wore a smock dress reminiscent of one my late friend, Lily, used to wear. The deep hue of her brown hair, the way it parted, and the unique texture of the ends cascading down her back were eerily similar to Lily’s. When our eyes met, I was startled by a sense of familiarity. As we passed, I turned to find her staring back at me, her expression tinged with recognition. This moment rattled me, and I immediately called my mom, who speculated whether the girl could be Lily’s sibling. It turned out that Lily’s mother, Anne, had moved to Paris and now had two little girls, one just the right age to be Lily’s double.
A few years later, tragedy struck my life when my high school friend, Alex, lost his life after dozing off at the wheel. On November 20, 1992 (the very day I pen this), my stepfather passed away from a heart attack. In my late twenties, I faced another loss with my best friend, Ryan, who succumbed to AIDS. I searched for signs of them everywhere, but unlike my encounter with Lily, I found no doppelgängers in the streets. Their spirits visited me in dreams, but they never appeared in the faces of passersby. Occasionally, I’d hear Ryan’s laughter from a stranger or spot a familiar gait that reminded me of Alex. They were reminders, but nothing more substantial. In February 2014, I lost my friend Kim, and in April, my beloved grandmother, “Nana,” passed away at the age of 94.
Nana was not your typical grandmother. She refused to be called “grandma,” as it made her feel aged. “Peggy” was her name among friends, but to her grandkids, she became “Nana.” She had her quirks—like her obsession with collecting sun motifs and rice jars—but she was particularly famous for her extensive collection of Little Red Riding Hood memorabilia. The collection had grown so vast that she dedicated an entire room of her apartment to it, and every gift-giving occasion turned into a competition to find the most unique piece for her collection.
Social was an understatement when it came to Nana. My mother is a close second, but Nana was a force of nature. She attended every movie and play, dining out daily except Sundays. When you called her in early November to arrange dinner, she’d flip through her planner and suggest the next available date—often in January.
Her last day unfolded like any other, except for its ending. She woke up, wrote a letter to my 8-year-old niece, her great-granddaughter, had lunch with a friend, returned home with half a sandwich for her housekeeper, and went into her bedroom to call her friend to thank her for the lovely day. They scheduled another get-together, and after hanging up, Nana never picked up the phone again. Just five minutes later, when her housekeeper entered to deliver the mail, she found Nana lifeless, sitting on the edge of her bed, phone still in hand, with her mouth slightly open as if she were about to share another story. Nana had passed at 94 on April 16, 2014, in the midst of a phone call—social, just as she lived.
The night she died, I didn’t have time to look for her in the world. Instead, NASA found her. My brother sent out an email with the subject line, “The most bizarre thing ever.” On the same day Nana died, NASA announced that Saturn had birthed a new moon, which they named Peggy.
The announcement declared: “For the first and perhaps last time ever, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbits Saturn, has captured a new moon emerging from the planet’s rings. The birth of a moon is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and in Saturn’s case, it might never happen again.”
I don’t subscribe to beliefs in an afterlife or heaven. I think our atoms are recycled and intermingle, creating new entities like sea otters and smartphones. While Nana is no longer here in her physical form, I find it hard to dismiss the coincidence of her passing aligning with the birth of a moon bearing her name. I prefer to think that everyone I have lost—like Lily, Kim, and Nana—has transformed into new forms. Thus, every person I meet and every moon I gaze upon holds the potential of being someone I cherished in a previous life.
NASA has shown me to perceive the universe in a more profound way. It has instilled in me hope that life and death are intertwined, and that those who depart from us are not truly lost but recycled into something new, perhaps as moons or planets. Now, I understand why Nana adored fairytales so much. Is she watching over me? Probably not. But it adds meaning to my life to look up at the cosmos and imagine her presence among the stars.
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Summary:
This reflective piece explores the connections between loss, memory, and the cosmos, as the author recounts personal experiences with death and the lasting impact of loved ones. It emphasizes the belief that those we have lost can continue to exist in new forms, drawing on a poignant coincidence between the passing of a grandmother and the naming of a moon by NASA. The narrative intertwines personal anecdotes with broader themes of life and death, ultimately offering a hopeful perspective on the cycle of existence.
Keyphrase: “loss and life lessons from the cosmos”
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