Last night, I came very close to you.

Last night, I came very close to you. Not in the way I long for every day—but in a way that reminded me just how thin the line is between being here… and not. I was crossing the street on my way home from work. It was my right of way. Everything was ordinary, predictable—until it wasn’t. A car suddenly accelerated into a turn, straight toward me. In that split second, my mind understood what was happening before my body could respond. I saw it. I knew it. And yet, I couldn’t move. He missed me by a breath. Someone ran toward me—a stranger, shaken—saying, “That was close.” She tried to take a picture of the license plate, as if capturing something tangible could make sense of what had just happened. But I just stood there, trembling, my body catching up to what my mind had already lived through. I was shaken long after I walked away. And then, Sana, my thoughts went to you. I kept wondering—what went through your mind in those moments when you came to know about the lymphoma? When your world shifted in an instant, just like mine almost did last night… but in a way so much bigger, so much more final. I search your face in my memory. And what I remember is this: there was no fear in your eyes. Just a quiet strength. A stillness I don’t know if I could ever fully understand. How did you hold that moment with such grace? Last night, for a fleeting second, I felt the fragility of life in my own body—the pause, the knowing, the helplessness. But you… you lived through that awareness in a way I am still trying to comprehend. I stood there on that street, caught between two realities: the one where I am still here… and the one where I might not have been. And in that space, I felt closer to you. I often think about fragility in the abstract. I’ve lived it in the deepest way through losing you. But last night, I felt it again—in my breath, in my stillness, in the way time seemed to pause just long enough for me to realize what almost was. It left me with so many feelings I can’t quite name. Gratitude, yes. But also something deeper—an awareness that feels almost sacred. That we are all moving through moments that could become endings without notice. And yet, here I am. Still walking. Still breathing. Still carrying you with me in everything I do. Maybe that’s what these moments are meant to do—not just shake us, but awaken us. To remind us, gently or harshly, of what truly matters. You mattered. You matter. You will always matter.