For Lauri

It’s hard to put into words what I’m feeling. I don’t have those vivid memories or those big, shared moments that people often lean on when they grieve. She wasn’t someone I was sent to for the weekend, or who took me to the mall, or who shared a long conversation with me at family gatherings. My memories of her are quieter—smaller snapshots of kindness.

I remember her asking if I needed help with a scoop of something at Thanksgiving. I remember handing her dishes after Christmas lunch at my grandparents’ house. She was always there, smiling, being nice. That’s how I thought of her: my dad’s brother’s wife, my aunt, and she was cool.

A couple of years ago, we started chatting on Facebook. I’m not sure why or how it started, but we were both up late at night, and she’d message me, or I’d message her. The conversations were never about anything big—random stuff about squirrels or whatever came to mind when the world was quiet. But even though they were small, those chats were something I looked forward to.

Now, there won’t be any more of those late-night messages. There’s a space where she was—where her random kindness and her coolness used to be—and it feels deeper than I expected. I didn’t know you could feel such a loss over something so subtle, but I do.

So here it is: I miss her. I miss her a lot more then I expected. Not because of big, shared history, but because of what she was in those small, quiet moments.

She was there, and she was cool.

And I’ll carry that with me.