What NASA Taught Me About Loss and Life

home insemination Kit

Updated: Sep. 11, 2015

Originally Published: November 25, 2014

Back in my college days, I took a trip to Paris for two weeks with my boyfriend. While strolling down a charming street, two little girls and their mother approached us, but I was struck by the older girl. She wore a smock dress similar to one my friend Hannah used to don. The way her rich brown hair fell, with those textured ends reminiscent of Hannah’s, caught me off guard. When our eyes locked, I felt a strange connection, and as we passed, I turned to find her staring back at me, her gaze filled with a sense of familiarity. Shaken, I called my mom, who speculated whether the girl could be Hannah’s sister. It turned out that Hannah’s mom, Linda, had moved to Paris and welcomed two daughters, one just a bit older than Hannah.

Years later, during my college years, tragedy struck when my high school friend, Tom, lost his life in a car accident. On the very same day, November 20th, 1992 (the date I’m writing this), my stepfather passed away from a heart attack, followed by my best friend, Alex, who succumbed to AIDS in my late twenties. I looked for signs of them everywhere, but unlike my encounter with Hannah, I found none. They visited me in dreams but never appeared in strangers I passed by. Occasionally, I’d hear Alex’s laughter in someone else’s voice or see Tom’s familiar walk reflected in another. They were reminders, but nothing more. In February 2014, my friend Sarah passed away, and just this past April, my grandmother, “Nana,” died at the age of 94.

Nana was no ordinary grandmother. She despised being called “grandma” because it made her feel old. To her friends, she was Linda, but to her grandkids, she was Nana. She possessed classic grandma quirks, like collecting suns and rice jars, but her pride and joy was her extensive collection of Little Red Riding Hood memorabilia. She had so many items that she dedicated an entire room in her apartment to the fairy tale. Every gift-giving occasion turned into a playful competition to find the best Little Red Riding Hood collectible for her.

Socializing was Nana’s forte; she was the most outgoing person I’ve ever known, with my mom coming in a close second. She attended every movie, play, and dined out for lunch and dinner every day—except Sundays. When you called her at the start of November to plan dinner, she’d check her calendar and offer the earliest available date, often in January.

Her last day was just another day—until it wasn’t. She woke up, wrote a letter to Mia, my eight-year-old niece and her great-granddaughter, enjoyed lunch with her friend Linda, returned home with half a sandwich for her housekeeper, and went to call Linda to thank her for a lovely time. They made plans for another outing, but Nana never hung up. When her housekeeper, Agnes, entered about five minutes later to deliver the mail, Nana was gone, seated on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, mouth open, resting against a pillow. She passed away at 94 on April 16, 2014, mid-conversation, staying true to her social nature.

That night, I didn’t have the chance to search for her in the world because NASA had already found her. My brother sent out an email with the subject line, “The most bizarre thing ever.” Nana’s passing coincided with an extraordinary event: Saturn birthed a new moon, and NASA named it Linda.

That same day, the news broke:

“For the first and perhaps the last time, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, whose mission is to orbit Saturn, captured a new moon emerging from the planet’s rings. The birth of a moon is a rare phenomenon, and in Saturn’s case, it might never happen again.”

I don’t believe in an afterlife or heaven. I think our atoms get recycled into some cosmic mixer, creating new beings like sea otters and smartphones. Nana is gone, and the person she was will never return, but I can’t help but feel a connection between her passing and the rare emergence of a moon bearing her name. I like to think that everyone we lose transforms into something new. That way, every person I encounter and every moon I gaze at could hold a piece of someone I loved, who loved me back.

NASA has taught me to see the world differently, to ponder life and death as intertwined rather than separate. It’s given me hope that those who pass don’t just vanish but are reborn as stars, moons, and planets. Now, I understand better why Nana adored fairy tales. Is she watching over me? Probably not, but imagining her in the night sky makes life feel so much more meaningful.

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Summary:

In reflecting on loss and the connections we share with those we’ve loved, the author recounts personal experiences with grief, revealing how NASA’s discoveries can offer a sense of hope and continuity in the face of death. The narrative intertwines personal anecdotes with the cosmic, suggesting that the essence of our loved ones may be reborn in the universe, linking life and death in a profound way.