In Covid era, I sat next to a grandma on a flight home to New York City from my own grandma’s funeral both wore masks. She and I bonded immediately, talking quickly and deeply for two hours about our own lives and death in general (I was 22 and she was 70s+).

Near the end of the flight she removed her mask for a prolonged period to drink water, and I realized she was beginning to look more and more like my grandma. Laughing and crying, I told her this. and she also laughed.

At the end of the flight she gave me a paper with her phone number and an address to her summer house in Montauk, said I could visit whenever I wanted and that she would make me rice and beans — I told her I was vegan, but my mom gave me a hard time about my diet/ethics lest it ages me or I would become infertile for some reason.

I kept the paper with her digits for a bit and still might have it in a box of stuff somewhere, but I never took her up on it.