Ten years ago today, my sister-in-law Wendy drowned while vacationing in Mexico. She was thirty.
It should be no surprise that this event remains very much a shock point for Erin and her parents. But though I didn’t know Wendy as much as they did, it’s a shock point for me as well, so much so that coming upon the anniversary is still a gut check. Can it already be a year? Can it already be two? Can it already be five?
Can it already be ten?
Today, Wendy would have been forty if she were still alive. She would have been an aunt to my two gorgeous children. They would have loved her and she would have loved them fiercely in return. She would have fostered their love for art. They would have had memories. They might have had more cousins.
But we continue to celebrate Wendy’s memory around this time by treating Vivian and Nora to “sisters” day, so that this day and the days around it have happy memories for them. They fight like cats in a bag, as Erin and Wendy did, I’m told. But they do love each other, and I hope they’ll appreciate that gift as the years go on.
