Walkin' on Sunshine

When's the last time you saw someone you know by complete chance? I'm not talking about a casual run-in at the grocery store or bumping into someone at work. I'm talking about a random encounter, where you are in the most unexpected place, and out of nowhere, you recognize a face you haven't seen in years. Your brain takes a second to register it. You stare. They stare. And all at once, you realize you know each other.

That kind of moment stays with you. The randomness of it, the shock of familiarity in a world that usually feels so large. Strangely, that's also how I think about death.

When someone dies, it's hard for me to think of them as simply gone. Instead, I imagine that they're just somewhere else. Not in some ethereal, unreachable heaven, but somewhere on Earth that I just don't have access to. They're out there, living a life I can't see, in a part of the world I can't reach. And if the world is small enough, maybe I'll run into them again. Maybe I'm just too slow to catch up, or too far to find them.

I know this isn't how death works. But for me, it's a way to make peace with it. It's not about denial. It's about comfort.

Sunshine was a cat we adopted after the neighbors abandoned her. She had been living off scraps, slowly losing control of her body, and most people had given up on her. My mom didn't. She took her in and brought her back to health. For a while, she was better. Then, just as quickly, she wasn't. Her decline was fast and unforgiving. We did everything we could, but one day she died. I still remember holding her body after she passed. It was cold, and I tried to warm it with my hands. I buried her in the mountains near our home. I dug the hole myself, placed her in it, and covered her with soil. But even after all that, I still find myself thinking that maybe she's just up the trail somewhere. Maybe she's trotting just out of reach, and I'm not fast enough to catch her.

I've felt that same way about my grandma. I imagine her walking through the streets of Spain, eating spaghetti and drinking wine. I imagine she's still out there, just busy traveling the world. She's not gone. I just can't find her right now.

Of course, I know it isn't real. But I like to believe in the possibility that I might see her again. That maybe one day I'll be riding the subway and when the doors open, she'll be there. That maybe she's been in another country this whole time, living a quiet life, and one day our paths will cross by accident.

It's the same kind of hope you carry when you think about an old friend you haven't seen in years. They moved away, or life just got busy, and you stopped talking. You don't hate them. You don't love them any less. They just slipped out of your day-to-day life. Still, you wonder about them. You imagine them living in New York or Chicago or Seoul. You don't call. You don't message. But every once in a while, you find yourself looking at a crowd and thinking, what if?

What if they're here? What if they turn the corner? What if you bump into them, just like that?

And maybe that's what I want death to feel like. Not an end, but a distance. Not a goodbye, but a long detour. Not someone I lost, but someone I might see again. Someone I just haven't bumped into yet.

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