For Alyson Luck

I found out Alyson died today. Pancreatic cancer.
I didn’t even know she was sick.

I found out on Instagram. Because of course I did.
It was an old photo: a group of girls on vacation in the 90s, arms slung around each other like nothing bad would ever happen.
The caption was soft. Reverent.
So I Googled.
And there it was. Obituary. Alyson Luck. Forty-three.

It’s not the first time I’ve lost someone my age.
Not even the first to that particular kind of cancer.
But this one feels like a sucker punch.
Because Alyson was joy incarnate.

I hadn’t seen her in over twenty years. We weren’t close in the adult sense. No texts, no calls, no holiday cards.
But for three years in high school, I saw her every single day.
And she made an impression.
One of the biggest, actually.

When I met her, I was fifteen and furious. I didn’t smile. I didn’t try.
I walked through the halls of Staples High School like a storm cloud that wouldn’t rain.

But Alyson, Alyson was all sun.
She laughed, loud and often. Not to be liked, not to be cute, because she meant it.
She cracked jokes with perfect timing. She made everything feel like a scene from a teen movie that didn’t suck.

And somehow she wasn’t annoying.
She was just good.
Solid.
Light.
And really, really funny.

We both ended up at the University of Michigan.
I was still trudging through life, furious that I had the privilege to go to a good school.
Alyson? Beamed.
When someone asked where we were headed, I’d grumble “Michigan.”
She’d sing it: “Michigan!” Like it was Disneyland.

We crossed paths on campus a few times.
I was usually hungover and pretending I wasn’t lost in every sense of the word.
She was still that same joyful force.
Still kind.
Still funny.

I admired her. Quietly.
Which is another way of saying I was a little scared of her.
Because when someone shows you what it looks like to actually enjoy being alive—and you don’t know how to do that yet… it can feel like looking at the sun.

That’s what Alyson was to me.
She made me consider—just consider—that maybe hope wasn’t just for suckers.
That maybe joy wasn’t naive.
That maybe lightness was a form of strength.

I should’ve kept in touch.
But the truth is, I wouldn’t have known how to, not then.
And now it’s too late.

But I remember.
And I’m telling you now.
Alyson Luck was a titan of joy.
And a lot of us are smiling today because of her.

Rest well, Alyson.
You were so loved.
Even by those of us who never said it out loud.