A woman fulfilling her dying older sister’s wish to take care of her children sounds like a touching story of sibling bonding.
But the sister looking after the kids and marrying her dead sister’s husband as well makes the same story just a tad unbelievable.
It began in 2008 when Jackie DeVita of Pennsylvania, a 42-year-old mother who was terminally ill with cancer, made a special request of her unmarried sister Colleen.
According to the Associated Press, Jackie removed her wedding ring on her deathbed and handed it to Colleen, asking her to take her place in her family.
"I want to know that this is the three of us," Jackie said, referring to Colleen, herself and her husband, Richard. "Don't ever leave my kids."
A stunned Colleen, now 46, reportedly turned down the request at first but came good on it three months later, marrying her former brother-in-law Richard, now 55.
"I know we have her blessing,' says Colleen DeVita, now wearing the ring that was once her sister's.
Jackie and Colleen are Irish twins – siblings born 50 weeks apart – and grew up in New York state.
After graduation, Jackie studied to become a medical assistant while Colleen moved to Florida in 1988 and began working at the dental office of endodontist Richard DeVita.
Five years later, Jackie joined her and also began working at Richard’s office.
A year later, in April 1994, Richard and Jackie married.
"From the time Jackie and Richard met, we were constantly together, the three of us," Colleen told the AP.
"We hung out every week at the beach. I wasn't dating or anything, so I was always the tag-along, but I loved it because I knew Richard and I loved Jackie," she said, "[The children] knew me like they knew their mother."
In 2005, Jackie was told that she had a brain tumor.
It was then that Colleen quit her job with Richard’s office and moved into the guest suite of the sprawling home Jackie, Richard and their children shared.
Three months after Jackie's funeral in June 2008, Richard and Colleen decided to fulfill Jackie’s death wish, but not without asking their children.
According to the Daily Mail, he took the children and Colleen to church where he sought the approval of the children. He married Colleen later.
Richard told the AP it was in "God's plan" that Colleen remained unmarried and was so close to her sister's family.
Colleen agrees as well. "I am happy. I loved this man as a boss, a brother-in-law, and now as a husband," Colleen told the AP. "I always say to people, 'Was I in love with him? No. Do I love him now? Yes.' He's a good man."
"There was no reason to wait," she said.
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