My Parents Announced At Their Wedding Anniversary Dinner: “We Are Going To Hawaii Next Week With The Entire Family For Another Party.” Everybody Was Happy. Then I Asked Them What Time Is The Departure? Dad Replied, “You Don’t Know Because You Are Not Part Of Us. You Can Stay Behind And Take Care Of All The Kids.” WHAT I SAID NEXT… NOBODY COULD BELIEVE.

There’s one person in my family who actually sees me. Her name is Ruth, and she’s my mother’s younger sister.

Aunt Ruth is what my mother calls the family disappointment. She never married. She followed her passion for ceramics instead of getting a real job. 20 years ago, she moved to Carmel by the Sea to open a small cafe with a pottery studio in the back. My mother hasn’t forgiven her since. Ruth threw away her potential. My mother likes to say she could have had a good life, but she chose to play with clay.

I’ve been calling Aunt Ruth every Sunday night for seven years. My mother doesn’t know.

It was Aunt Ruth who first saw my photographs. I’d sent her one, just one, testing the waters, and her response made me cry. Wendy, this is extraordinary. You have a gift. Nobody had ever called anything I did extraordinary.

She was the one who encouraged me to keep shooting, to keep posting. And she was the one who 3 weeks before my parents’ anniversary said something that changed everything.

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