She flickered through my life maybe five, six times—brief, half-formed moments that barely stuck. A hug here, a nod there, shadows of a woman glimpsed across a room or a table during some family event, then gone. Rare occasions, scattered thin like ash on wind, too faint to hold.

I hadn’t seen her in years, and I just learned that she died. The weight of it sits heavy, unexpected, a dull thud in the chest. To me, she was more outline than flesh. I didn’t know her, not really—not her favorite movies, not the way she took her coffee, not the stories she might’ve told if I’d ever asked. And yet here I am, staring at the absence, feeling the sting of what never was.

I try to summon her face. Not the flat, faded version from some old photo, but the living one—the soul who maybe lingered too long over a plate or spoke too softly for me to catch what she was saying. That handful of encounters blur into a haze, slipping through my grip, leaving only the raw edge of what I didn’t do. I didn’t reach out. Didn’t carve a path through the miles that sprawled between us—just a few states, a day’s drive, nothing that couldn’t have been crossed. But I let it stretch, let the excuse of distance harden into a wall, and now it’s crumbled too late. She’s gone, and what’s left is a hollow echo where a bond might’ve grown.

The regret gnaws, bitter as cold coffee left too long. She should’ve been known. The creases in her hands, the tilt of her head, the quiet things she held dear—I should’ve chased those down, pinned them into memory. Instead, I let time bleed out, let “someday” become a ghost that haunts me now.

How do I grieve a stranger who was really a blood relative. It’s a wound I dug myself, and it sits there, jagged and real, begging for something—anything—to make it mean more than silence.

So I turn to prayer, a two-part plea scratched out in the dark. First, for her—a candle lit, a breath offered up. May God cradle her soul in heaven, may she rest in peace, wrapped in a light that washes away the dust of this world. May she find a place up there bright and whole, where the miles don’t matter and the quiet I left them in is forgiven. I don’t know what she believed, don’t know if she’d scoff or nod at this, but I pray it anyway—because it’s all I’ve got to give her now. A flame, a hope, a whisper that she’s home with something greater than my failures.

The second part of the prayer’s for me. I think of the others—the aunts, the cousins, the uncles whose voices I’d know in a crowd but whose lives I’ve barely brushed. They’re out there, scattered like embers I’ve let cool. May I not do this again. May I find the guts to pick up the phone, to burn the miles, to sit with them and hear the heartbeat of who they are. I pray for the will to stitch them into me, to turn the regret I carry for this one into a fire that keeps the living close. It’s a vow wrapped in a plea—messy, human, clawing for redemption before another name slips away.

It’s too late for that relative, and that’s the knife that twists. I see her in my mind, maybe looking down from somewhere, and wonder if she’d laugh at this—tears for a gap I built brick by brick. Or maybe she’d just shrug, knowing how life seeps through the cracks we ignore until they’re too wide to cross. I’ll never know, and that’s the scar I’ll wear. But for the relatives still here—I can reach them, can hold them before the distance turns permanent.

So I sit and peck out this prayer split in two: one that she rests with God in heaven, one that I’ll fight to know the living. May she be at peace up there, held beyond my regret. And may I learn, before the candle burns out on my own life, to hug the ones who are still alive.