Before my older daughter, Orli, died in 2023, I had not spent much time thinking about how we remain in relationship to those we have lost. If I thought about it at all, it was in much more concrete ways — like the importance of preserving memory. That changed when Orli left us.

The idea for this piece has been percolating for me for some time, but even so I felt a bit sheepish sharing the ways in which I have found her in the world today. If I'm having a hard day and I see a sign of her, it can change my mood, even briefly. Many of these moments are things that skeptics can easily explain away — seeing an image of a fox, for example.

One person might say it merely reminds them of her. For me, it makes her more present. It turns out that scientists have been looking at exactly what I suspected: it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks, but how the moment makes the bereaved feel, and where it places us in our grief.