During my college years, I took a trip to Paris with my boyfriend. One afternoon, as we strolled down a charming street, I noticed two little girls walking towards us with their mother. My attention was immediately drawn to the older girl, who wore a smock dress reminiscent of what my childhood friend, Melissa, used to wear. The deep richness of her brown hair and the way it fell into textured ends, much like Melissa’s, stopped me in my tracks. As we passed, our eyes locked, and it felt like a moment of haunting recognition. I turned to see her staring back at me, and I was so unsettled that I called my mother. She mused if the girl might be Melissa’s sister. I later learned that Melissa’s mother, Sharon, had moved to Paris and had two daughters, one close to Melissa’s age.
A few years later, tragedy struck when my high school friend, Ayden, lost his life in a car accident. On November 20, 1992, my stepfather passed away from a heart attack, and in my late twenties, my best friend Stephen succumbed to AIDS. Despite searching for signs of them in the world, I never encountered alternate versions of them, unlike my experience with Melissa. They appeared in my dreams but not in the faces of strangers. Occasionally, I would hear Stephen’s laughter or catch a glimpse of Ayden’s familiar walk in others, but those were mere echoes. In February 2014, my friend Maggie passed away, followed by my grandmother, “Pugsy,” in April at the age of 94.
Pugsy was anything but your typical grandmother. She disliked being called “grandma,” as it made her feel old. Instead, she was known as Peggy to her friends and Pugsy to her grandchildren, eventually earning that name among everyone. She had her quirks, collecting suns and rice jars, but her most distinguished collection was of Little Red Riding Hood memorabilia. She loved it so much that an entire room in her apartment was dedicated to the fairy tale. Any occasion was a chance to gift her another Little Red Riding Hood collectible, with everyone aiming to impress.
Socially, she was unparalleled, easily outdoing anyone I knew (my mother being a close second). She attended every movie and play and dined out almost daily, except on Sundays. When I called her in early November to plan dinner, she checked her calendar and offered the next available date in January.
Pugsy’s last day was just like any other, except for its ending. She woke up, penned a letter to my 8-year-old niece Mia, went out to lunch with her friend Sue, returned home with half a sandwich for Agnes, her housekeeper, and then headed to her bedroom to call Sue and thank her for the lovely afternoon. They made plans for another get-together, but when Sue hung up, Pugsy never did. Just five minutes later, Agnes entered the room to deliver the mail and found her lifeless, sitting on the edge of her bed with the phone still in her hand.
What happened next was remarkable. The night she passed away, NASA made a discovery, and my brother sent us an email with the subject line “The most bizarre thing ever.” Coincidentally, Pugsy’s death coincided with an extraordinary event: Saturn birthed a new moon, which NASA named Peggy.
The announcement stated: “For the first and perhaps the last time, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured a new moon emerging from Saturn’s rings. The birth of a moon is a rare occurrence, and it may never happen again in Saturn’s case.”
I don’t subscribe to the belief in an afterlife or heaven. Instead, I think our atoms are recycled, mingling together in some cosmic concoction, creating new beings like sea otters or smartphones. While Pugsy is gone in her physical form, I find a sense of comfort in the poetic coincidence that her passing aligned with the birth of a moon named in her honor. I like to believe that everything around us contains fragments of those we’ve lost. Thus, every person I meet and every celestial body I see carries the potential of being someone I once loved, someone who loved me.
NASA has taught me to perceive the world through a lens of curiosity. It offers hope that life and death are intertwined rather than separate entities, suggesting that those who pass continue to exist in new forms—like moons and planets. I now understand why Pugsy cherished fairy tales so deeply. Is she watching over me? Probably not, but looking up at the night sky and imagining her presence makes life feel richer.
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In summary, my experiences with loss and the coincidental occurrences surrounding my grandmother’s death have shaped my understanding of life and death. Through the lens of NASA’s discoveries, I find solace in the belief that those we love never truly vanish; they transform into something new, reminding us that love and connection transcend even the boundaries of existence.