I looked at a picture of my older brother. In the few months leading up to that night, I had been writing a book about terminally ill children below the poverty line in India. All the proceeds from the book were to go towards the treatment of these children. To make the book as authentic as possible, I had spent a lot of time with the children. Unfortunately, a lot of them passed away before the book saw the light of day. In that moment, all the money the book was going to make had seemed worthless to me, because I had actually grown to care for the children. In front of me were a few jars I had made for each of the children's families. Each jar was filled with little things like paintings the children made and with the children's secrets and memories written on post it notes or as short stories based on everything I had learnt from the time I had spent with them. I sealed Swap's jar and stuck the shipping label to ensure it would reach his family before his funeral. I remembered the last time I had seen my brother, and wished for the hundredth time that night that I could give him a hug and call him stupid again. I wished for the hundredth time that I could have gone back in time and asked him more about his life and told him that I loved him instead of squabbling about inconsequential things. And in that moment, I wished that he was smiling down on me for trying to give other families pieces of their babies to hold on to during their funerals in a way that I hadn't for ours.

I spent my entire third year at Princeton with two people who soon became more family than friends. While every moment with them was nothing short of magic, I specifically remember our last dinner together. Since M. and Em. were a year senior to me, they were going to be graduating at the end of the week and moving away while I would have to return to Princeton for another year. Before we left, we went to our eating club [historic dining institutions at Princeton] for a members-only dinner. We arrived there at 5:00 p.m. and sat at our favorite table, recounting all the great moments we had shared in the club and with each other. Dinner started at 5:30. It was cleared by 8:00. The music went off by 9:00. We continued to dig into our cupcakes as we tried to figure out how many times we had each fallen asleep during our wine and movie nights. By 11:00, we just sat in silence and looked at each other. While this moment was seemingly inconsequential, I also knew that once we got up from the table, I would never be able to eat with them as members again. Maybe they kept sitting because they were thinking the same. Or maybe they kept sitting because they were in food comas. Either way, we left the dinner table at 1:30 a.m. that night. And I would have still given anything to be able to freeze that dinner in time.