The Wish List Trip

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Hello, gals!

I can’t believe we’re all together again. The three of us! I knew it would take drastic measures to bring you together, so, ta da, one drastic measure!

You were the stars that lit my path that first year of college, and without your friendship I’m not sure I would have been able to keep going.

You helped me find joy and the strength to stop feeling guilty for being alive.

I’m so incredibly grateful to have had you in my life, for the things we shared and the things we dared.

I’ve relived our trips through the many photos.

(Thank you, Anna, for the pics! We could always count on you and your phone.) Now it’s time for the two of you to relive those trips.

Literally. And before you get all defensive, you gals only have yourselves to blame.

If you’d been more cooperative, we could have sorted this whole thing out before I died.

Now you’ll have to do it without me mediating between the two of you.

Well, without me at all. We’ll just have to make do with letters because I know you two.

You’ll try to weasel out of this, and I’m not leaving anything to chance.

Okay gals, here’s the plan: Over fourteen days, you are going to revisit every place we vacationed together.

Plus one more. This trip isn’t just about visiting the places we went and distributing my ashes.

There are things you don’t know about me, things I’d wanted to tell you so many times over the years, but I hadn’t had the courage to share.

I know letters aren’t a substitute. I should have told you when I was alive.

But if I know us, I suspect we’ve all been hiding something from each other.

The trips we took together were the best days of my life. I just hope this trip will be the one where we can all finally come clean.

Please don’t forget me.

xo,

Z.