My cousin Johnny’s sudden death reminds us how quickly time passes | Helen Ubiñas

My cousin died. It was sudden. His heart.

Johnny Torres was fun and funny, a good guy. I hadn’t seen him in more years than I’d like to admit, but at the viewing, his reputation for kindness hadn’t changed. He was always there if you needed him, friends and family agreed.

Sudden deaths always shock. But when it’s someone you grew up with, someone not much older than you, even while mourning, it’s hard not to think of your own mortality.

We kind of lie to ourselves every day, don’t we? We might think there’s plenty of sand left in the hourglass. And then someone like Johnny suddenly dies and I’m reminded of how little control we actually have.

One of the last times I saw him was a horrifyingly public reminder of that. It was 9/11. I was on my way to cover the terror attacks for my old newspaper in Connecticut, and I asked the photographer driving us into the city to stop in the Bronx to check on my family. Back then, it had also been a while since I’d seen them.

But that didn’t matter. Johnny rushed to our car, to let me know the family was OK, but to also let us know that if we needed anything, we shouldn’t hesitate to call.

If you need me, I remember him saying, I’ll find you.

And now here I was last week, headed back again to the family and the neighborhood I hadn’t been around in a long time, filled with a mix of sadness and anxiety and guilt and regret.

First cousins by our mothers, we grew up more like siblings, my two sisters and me, and Johnny and his younger brother and sister. We slept over at each other’s houses. We spent summer vacations together at the “country,” some family-style bungalows in upstate New York, where we city kids ran free and wild, climbing trees and rescuing frogs. We laughed — and Johnny always had the best laugh. We fought. We looked out for each other.

When my family moved to Massachusetts and Connecticut, they’d sometimes follow. But, for good and bad, they always moved back to the city. Sometimes I envied them. I’d always been able to breathe in New York in a way that for a long time I couldn’t anywhere else. I can’t really explain why, just like I’ve never really been able to explain, not fully, how much my cousins have to do with who I am as a journalist. Maybe one day.

And yeah, I know how ridiculous that sounds in this context. “One day” isn’t guaranteed. I’m reminded of that every time I talk to a mother whose child was gunned down. I’m reminded of that every time young people in Philly are surprised to have reached their 18th birthday because they feared they wouldn’t make it. I’m reminded of that every time I see a young person’s potential go unmet, sometimes swallowed whole by broken people and systems. I am reminded of that when I walk around Philly and look into the faces of people who so often remind me of the people I grew up with. Full of life. Full of promise.

I was just in the Bronx for a few hours, long enough to sit with my aunt and a few of my cousins at the funeral home, to cry a little and reminisce a lot. I didn’t bring it up, but for some reason, the memory that kept playing in my head was that of my mother and sisters and me running out of our apartment to get to my aunt’s place nearby when our TV died on the day of the climactic return of Laura on General Hospital. Titi Vilma to the rescue, always.

On my way out, my cousins and I promised to stay in touch. Maybe we will. I thought about saying a lot of things to Johnny’s wife, but the words got stuck in my throat. I had watched her stand by his casket with their granddaughter for a long time, gently touching his arm, fixing the sleeve of a dress shirt that looked a lot like one he wore to my wedding.

I hugged her tight and said goodbye.