Nicole will come up in conversations where it's in a part of the

Host: The night lay heavy over a quiet Los Angeles backyard, the kind of silence that feels rehearsed — still, heavy, as if even the air had decided not to speak. A few dim patio lights hummed above a long wooden table, where the remains of dinner sat cooling — untouched wine, half-burned candles, shadows stretching across old photographs.

Jack sat at the far end, his eyes fixed on one photo in particular: a woman smiling in the sunlight, holding two kids who looked like laughter had been easy once. Jeeny sat across from him, her elbows on the table, her tone soft — not gentle in pity, but careful in reverence.

A faint wind passed through, flicking one candle to life again, just long enough to light the corner of her face.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet for a while.”

Jack: “It’s strange. I don’t know if I’m remembering her, or trying to stop.”

Jeeny: “You mean her birthday?”

Jack: “Yeah. O. J. Simpson once said, ‘Nicole will come up in conversations where it's in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know, we always honor her birthday.’ That part—honoring what’s gone, even when it still haunts—hits harder than I expected.”

Jeeny: “It’s the kind of remembering that hurts on both sides, isn’t it? Too much silence feels like betrayal, too much speech feels like reopening something sacred.”

Jack: “Exactly. Grief’s got no right language. You either speak too much or not enough.”

Jeeny: “So you honor her quietly.”

Jack: “I try. But memory’s never quiet, Jeeny. It whispers through everything — the songs on the radio, the smell of a place, the laughter that doesn’t sound the same anymore.”

Host: The candles flickered, throwing light across the photo again. For a moment, the smile in it almost seemed to move — not alive, not ghostly, but remembered.

Jeeny: “You know what’s complicated about honoring the dead? You’re not just remembering them — you’re remembering who you were when they were alive.”

Jack: “Yeah. And that’s the part that really hurts.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s gone too.”

Jack: “Exactly. It’s not just losing the person. It’s losing the version of yourself that existed beside them.”

Jeeny: “So you tell stories to keep both alive.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s why I do it. To remind myself I was someone worth remembering too.”

Host: The wind picked up again, rustling the trees, carrying the faint sound of traffic in the distance — the eternal hum of a city that forgets faster than it forgives.

Jeeny: “You ever think grief softens with time?”

Jack: “No. It just changes shape. Turns from a knife into a photograph.”

Jeeny: “And the birthday?”

Jack: “It’s the one day you let the photograph talk back.”

Jeeny: “You mean you talk to her.”

Jack: (nods, quietly) “Yeah. Out loud. I tell her what the kids are doing. The things she’d laugh about. The things she’d scold me for.”

Jeeny: “You think she hears you?”

Jack: “I think the talking’s for me, not her.”

Jeeny: “Then that’s still love.”

Host: The sky dimmed further, stars slipping through the LA haze — faint, scattered, as though the universe itself didn’t want to intrude. The night smelled of jasmine and dust.

Jeeny: “Do you ever feel guilty for remembering?”

Jack: “Sometimes. As if keeping her alive in words means I’m keeping her from resting.”

Jeeny: “But forgetting doesn’t free her either. It only empties you.”

Jack: “Maybe grief’s just a debt we keep paying in small installments.”

Jeeny: “And birthdays are the due date.”

Jack: (softly, almost smiling) “Yeah. But they’re also a receipt — proof that love doesn’t die.”

Host: The flame wavered again, stretching tall before collapsing into itself. The sound of the lighter broke the silence as Jack relit it, a small ritual against darkness.

Jeeny: “You ever think you’ll stop lighting those candles?”

Jack: “No. Because it’s not about superstition. It’s about defiance. Every year the world keeps spinning, and I just want to say — she mattered.”

Jeeny: “That’s all anyone wants, I think. To still matter after the story ends.”

Jack: “You ever notice how memory isn’t linear? It’s circular. You come back to the same moments every year, like orbiting something you can’t escape.”

Jeeny: “Or something you won’t let go of.”

Jack: “Same thing, isn’t it?”

Jeeny: “No. One’s pain, the other’s love.”

Host: The night deepened. The streetlights outside flickered on, and the city turned gold again — a warm color for cold spaces.

Jack: “You know, people think grief is a single emotion. But it’s a symphony — guilt, anger, nostalgia, even laughter. It all plays at once, and you can’t tell which part hurts the most.”

Jeeny: “That’s why we tell stories, Jack. To turn the noise into something that sounds like music.”

Jack: “You think it works?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. When you tell them with love, not regret.”

Jack: “Love’s easy to talk about when it’s here. Harder when it’s gone.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why we keep it alive in rituals. Birthdays. Candles. Conversations like this.”

Jack: “So it doesn’t fade.”

Jeeny: “No — so you don’t.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then, showing the two of them beneath the string lights, the framed photo catching a single candle’s glow — the woman’s smile reflecting between them, still part of the conversation.

Host: Because O. J. Simpson’s words — however ordinary — spoke to something universal:
That even in ruin, remembrance remains sacred.

To honor someone isn’t just to recall their existence,
but to carry their laughter, their faults, their humanity
into every silence that tries to erase them.

Host: Grief doesn’t end; it evolves.
It becomes a language we speak to the absent —
and every story, every birthday candle,
is our way of saying, “You still live here.”

Jeeny: “Do you want to tell me a story about her?”

Jack: (smiles faintly) “Yeah. But not yet. Tonight, I just want to sit with the silence she left behind.”

Jeeny: “Then I’ll sit with you.”

(She reaches across the table, her hand brushing his — not fixing, not soothing, just staying.)

Host: The camera fades,
leaving the two of them in soft amber light —
a man, a friend, a photo, and a memory that refuses to dim.

Because love, even after death,
isn’t about moving on.

It’s about learning to live beside the ghost of what was once whole
and whispering, year after year,

“You are still remembered.”