.

.

 

BELLA BHUKHAN: All That Sparkled

 

Bella Bhukhan, 24, danced the part of the youngest with a certain spark. Of the three sisters, she was the most playful, the most stubborn, the bluntest - in a sense, the most western. Raised in a Gujarati family who settled in Union, N.J., after migrating from Zambia, she was the defiant one who returned from a Cancún vacation with a tattoo on her lower back.

Yet she also embraced her Indian heritage. At her eldest sister Vicky's wedding last month, Bella performed a traditional Indian dance wearing a long brown and gold skirt, sleeveless top and jewelry that glittered and clattered.

With her engaging smile, Bella was a people-person. At the Cantor Fitzgerald memorial service, her family was struck by how many employees, especially the foreign-born, remembered how well Bella took care of them in the human resources department. That was the role this youngest sister assumed at home, too: "The three of us were best friends and she was very upset I was moving so far away," said Vicky Tailor. "She always told my in-laws to take care of me and called every other day to see if I was being treated right."

.

From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times