I made pesto the other day.

As I poured the green garlicky goop into jars my mind wandered to summers long behind me.

Every summer from around age 5 to somewhere around 14 my parents would send me to spend a few weeks with my grandmother (Gan Gan) in Decatur, Alabama. I LOVED doing this because I would get to spend my days playing with cousins, going to tennis lessons, swimming, and setting up make believe tea party weddings in my grandmother’s beautiful backyard. It was a time that I cherish still to this day. I spent most of it with Gan Gan and my cousin Anna Catherine. 

The closest thing I had to a sister

Let me tell you a little bit about Anna Cathrine. She was two years older than me, spirited, sweet, and I thought she walked on pure sunshine.

I am the baby of my family and I’m the only girl. Anna was the closest thing I had to a sister and she was everything I wasn’t. She was extroverted, brave, and unafraid. A great contrast to my introverted self who rarely said a thing out of place. I admired the heck out of her. Still do. 

There were many times during those summers that we would spend the mornings playing out in the sunshine, either at the water park, in the backyard, or riding bikes up and down the street in front of Gan Gan’s house. We would come in sweaty and sunkissed and ready for some lunch and some downtime. 

Gan Gan, the master hostess and gardener extraordinaire, would pull homemade pesto (made with basil from her garden) from the freezer. She would cook up some pasta, usually tortellini, and serve it up with some fresh mint lemonade (made with spearmint from her garden, of course). She called this summer lunch Noodles and Green stuff.

I’d take the noodles, hold the green stuff. Anna Catherine would take both. We would eat outside together on the patio, watching the bees, butterflies and birds as they flew from tree to tree and flower to flower. I can still hear their chirps alongside the putter of the fountain by her back porch. We would talk and laugh. Those were my favorite days. 

Things change when devastation occurs.

On February 15, 2012, Anna Catherine was brutally murdered in her home. I will never forget that day. I was a freshman in college and just had the closest thing I ever had to a sister taken from me. Devastation doesn’t even begin to describe what happened to our family that day and in the days, weeks, months, and years that followed.

Things change when devastation occurs. It’s been 11 years since that fateful day and I can’t tell you that any of us have fully recovered. I doubt that we ever will.  And now as I am a mom of two, I can’t help but grieve over the fact that our kids will never get to spend those summer days together, playing in the sunshine and eating Noodles and Green Stuff. She would have been a wonderful mom. Instead she is forever 20.

I try not to dwell on these facts of life for too long. I give them some space and then let the thoughts carry on. Because life does go on. One way or another. Instead, I choose to honor these memories by making Noodles and Green Stuff and telling my kids about how cool their Aunt Anna Catherine was.

By the way, I no longer hold the green stuff.