Galaxy of Connections

Sarah Chen

Thank you for always helping me through difficult moments. You made the hard projects feel possible, and the ordinary Tuesdays feel like a team.

The migration project we worked on together — pizza at midnight, a green dashboard at 2 a.m., and you saying we should go home anyway.

Wherever you land, leave the door cracked. We'll find you.

You never treated a title as the work. You treated the people as the work. That is rare, and I will steal it.

You covering for me in the incident review without making it a story about me.

Campus feels smaller without you in the group chat. You were the person who turned a library table into a home.

Finals week ramen, the broken kettle, and that playlist you still refuse to share.

You pack light and notice everything. That is how I want to move through the world.

Missing the last train and walking until the city felt like ours.

You always called the wipe before it happened and still queued again. That's the whole friendship.

The raid that took four hours and one bag of cold fries.

The block will be quieter. Thank you for the spare keys, the plants, and the conversations on the stoop.

Power outage night, every candle we owned, and stories until the lights came back.

You asked better questions than anyone in the seminar, then bought everyone coffee after.

The night we almost missed graduation photos because we were still talking.

You made room for quieter voices in every room you ran. I hope the next place knows what they have.

Sketching the first version of the product on a napkin you still kept.