A tribute to my cousin Wendy

As we come to the end of the month of February we remember my cousin Wendy, and we just need to stop and reflect how precious life is. We can think of this time as a somber, sad time or we can celebrate her life and be thankful that she gave us her love and she enriched our lives, and in the process made them better.
So we give thanks to God for having chosen us to be blessed by Wendy's life. God is our creator, our father and our comforter; he brings us peace even in the middle of the storm.
To know what kind of a person Wendy was we can look at her two “kids” and what kind of a parent she was, that's where we can say the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
We say at times her life was cut too short. I believe that in God's eyes her life was neither short nor long, but just the exact length, and I believe that we all serve a greater purpose than ourselves, and therefore Wendy fulfilled that purpose, she blessed her parents, she touched the lives of many people, through her work and friendship, and she was the older sister to my cousin Ian.
In our short paths in this world we cross and share other people's paths, sometime for a longer period than in others, but that doesn’t mean than by being shorter the sharing is less fulfilling.
When I met Wendy for the first time in 1978 she came across as a shy and fragile person, she was a teenager then. It was in 1979 that we truly developed a close relationship, including a visit just the two of us to London on the boat that goes from Embankment to Greenwich. The last time Emma, our kids and I visited Leavesden was in 1998, she was a mature woman then, but still fragile, vulnerable and somewhat shy. I guess that was what made Wendy somebody you could love. She had a little bit of a hard time at the beginning but she would open her heart to people, and end giving the best of herself in every relationship. Most people don’t have that asset.
So now, again, I like to thank God for allowing us to share Wendy’s path, and in doing so we were blessed with her existence.
When she went home to God four years ago I wrote, with his inspiration, a eulogy for her, and I will finish this tribute to her here just like I did then with the words of the book of Numbers that say:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”