Epic tales...

Her name was Arjumand Banu Begum when she would catch the eye of young prince Khurram in a way that would shape an entire empire’s history for all eternity. His name would change to “Shah Jahan” when he became the Mughal Emperor in the year 1628, after the death of his father Emperor
Jahangir. The name “Shah Jahan” comes from Persian meaning “King of the World.” He called her Mumtaz Mahal, “jewel of the palace.” A Jewel he would lose when she experienced an untimely death while giving birth to their 14th child. Heartbroken, the emperor employed over 20,000 workers and 1000 elephants for two decades in order to build a fitting monument to the depth of their love. The Monument that is now known as The Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan, the king of the world, would later be imprisoned by his own son, with his only view through the barred window of his prison being that of the great monument to his long lost wife. Till this day it stands as a symbol of eternal love.

Epic Love Stories. Now I know we would all like to believe that what we have is that strong, that immense, that powerful but I don’t think that it’s a word that applies to every relationship. For a love to be epic in a movie it has to be a wonderful, nothing by the book, every bit amazing kind of story. Sort of like a summer love both passionate, and wild, crazy, and grand. Every bit of emotion is felt, every kiss sweeps you, and every word tugs at the heart.

The usual couple portrays two complete different souls who by chance or opportunity come together in the most unusual of ways and cannot part since the moment they connect. They live out an ardent love affair full of emotions, and fight, and great stride. Usually culminating rapidly. They are madly in love and they fight whomever, and whatever to remain together. They are so in love they act insane. They overcome obstacles, and sometimes opposition from those closest to them. They are often questioned because the love that they are living is life changing. Everything about them, the person they were, the person they are, and who they become is forever changed because there is this greater than life power who is now moving. True love is that powerful. It comes and sweeps in to our hearts, its scary and thrilling, its wild and crazy, its frustrating, intoxicating, complicated, truly unexpected, and breath taking. It changes us, it moves us, it completes us.

For a story to be and eternal symbol of love it isn’t necessary to build a monument. All that is needed is a great heart, an open heart. That believes, trusts, and takes chances. Love is a wild card. The emotions of an epic love story are a roller coaster. But the question is would you settle for getting by or would you rather love someone so much you are changed forever?

The best relationships I know today are of two souls that by anybody else’s opinion would not be paired off. But they somehow come together and they make a dynamic that is not only strong but also envious. Take my mom and dad for example. My dad is this never edited person who can be of many words but often not. He is aggressive and strong willed. While my mom is this passionate, sensitive being, who over talks my dad any day. And yet they have this 34 year relationship that has the best foundation I have ever seen. Because though complete opposites in character they are both passionate in ideals and crazy about each other and that makes for a great marriage.

At the end of the day Love isn’t only written. The best love stories are lived. And if you haven’t found your happy ending yet what is it you’re searching for? Someone to fill a space, or someone to give your all to?

I don’t know about you but I don’t want just to change my last name. I want someone to adore. I want to be pushed to my limit and be brought back down to earth by the person who cares most about me. I want to love someone so much I’m willing to change, evolve.

Because isn’t that what love is really about? Allowing someone else to take control of our heart and let them leave a mark? Wouldn’t you much rather have something passionate, and breath taking than something common and mechanical? So where does your story stand? Is it everything you ever dreamed of? When you look beside you are you sure you’re where you belong?

I believe every story though short or long is meant to be told. The beginning and the ending are extra. The body of work is what you should worry about. Someone wise once said that the most important parts of a story are the in-between. “With out the part in between the ending is useless, and the beginning happened for no reason… (I wont see or do everything in life, but I can have someone who is everything in my life.)” My advice then is… instead of worrying about how beautifully it is written, worry about how amazingly it is lived.

Intermezzo: NOT always a love story

“I have been an intermezzo in his life…” I say biting my lip.

And she nods because she understands. It’s her story. And her heart skips a beat, and a tear falls, and the sky in the darkest shade of gray agrees with a downpour of its own rain.

And we sit and watch an old 1939 movie with a story that jumps from the screen. The story portrayed is that of a concert pianist and the affair he begins with his accompanist. A story so raw, of a love so meticulously built upon the unhappiness of others. Ingrid Bergman portrays Anita, a young, naive soul, who falls in love desperately with out a care in the world. And Leslie Howard, as Holgar Brandt, a man so talented in his craft who cant resist putting everything on the line, even his family, to fall passionately and foolishly in love with someone else.

Anita soon finds that living in the shadows of their love is not enough. That living in a far away place cut off from the world, or pretending that the past doesn’t exist, will not stop the future from unraveling. She is asked to question if what once meant the most to her simply stopped to exist because her attention was drawn away from it. She wants to believe so badly that he loves her and that she loves him and that that is enough for them to be happy. But she finds herself torn with guilt for breaking up his family. Realizing that a love like theirs is wrong and dragged down with remorse and fears she decides to walk away. In this movie Holgar finds redemption and forgiveness.

But in life, well… life writes itself.

“I just don’t get it Miriam. Why? Why did he do it? “

I look at her and stare because for someone who always has the right thing to say, I just don’t know.

I’ve often wondered what leads someone to cheat. Can happiness really be built upon the unhappiness of others? In Intermezzo the couple lives out their affair fully open. But in real life most affairs are kept in secret. An omission becomes a lie, and a lie a betrayal. And once the wheel is in motion it all becomes an inevitable crash site. So what good comes out of a lie? Does omission of the truth really save us? Or in our web of lies do we lose ourselves?

Have you ever seen a house of cards? Something so meticulously constructed takes time and effort and because of that you can’t but appreciate its architect. But the truth is its structure is questionable, its walls are flimsy, and the balance is unstable. A sudden shift and the infrastructure will collapse completely flat. And you can’t imagine from the rubble left that anything ever stood there to begin with.

A relationship based upon omissions has the same inevitable ending. It begins with a lie. A lie so meticulously constructed, perfectly displayed, that it makes any one who heard it, believe it. After all, the person left in the dark doesn’t know the truth. To them this house of cards is enchanting and charming. In their eyes they have someone they can count on, believe in, and bet their life on. But in truth they live in a flimsy structure, a fragile arrangement, and a weak situation that is in danger of failing.

So what good is a speculative scheme if it’s vulnerable to an impending cave in? Why create something so complex if what you end up with is something you don’t want? Why make someone believe you love them, if in reality they were just a stepping stone?

When the cards unravel and the truth comes out it makes everything else you lived with that person seem like a complete lie. That you were foolishly living in a world of pretend and that you were naive for believing you were safe in the lie created. You’re ground has shifted, everything you believed in is questioned, and that confidence you had that this could never happen to you is stripped. It leaves you feeling completely bare and the emotional walls you build up don’t seem to be built fast enough. There’s also a huge sense of abandonment. It feels like he/she poured gasoline all over you and lit you on fire. And walked away with out ever looking back. Left you alone to bear the pain and the burn of it all. The truth is you turned your back for just one second, and the knife fell. And the one holding it was the one you loved the most.

An intermezzo is a short piece of music between the acts of a story. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play. A connection between something great and something greater. An intermezzo in this case can be a short lived affair that steals your attention for a short time. The Other woman/man who captured his/her love. Or it is us, ourselves, and realizing that sometimes we are just that… a short lived tale or a brief story that just lives on for a moment in time. A stepping stone for that other person, who willingly or Not, hurt us to get to where they need to be in life.

Life is a series of events and acts, some fortunate, some not. That’s the honest truth. Sometimes we get why things happen and sometimes all we are left with are questions. But if the house of cards shall fall down, if it all goes up in flames, if you lose yourself in all the heartache and the pain… know that eventually you will find the will and the way to go on again. Because I honestly believe that we may not always end up where we thought we were going… but we will always end up where we were meant to be.

If you must believe...believe in love

After a lifetime of searching what every girl really wants is to ride off into the sunset in the arms of the man she loves. Love is a series of fairy tales all wrapped into one. But how you write your’s is entirely up to you.

Sleeping Beauty literally bleeds when touching the end of a spindle. Though long protected by those around her doom is eminent. So on a tower she waits in deep sleep for true loves first kiss, with out knowledge of the war waging for her outside. Philip has to battle an army of villains, followed by a dangerous road, and challenge a larger than life dragon before he ever gets to see his maiden. And when he does they both know they are exactly where they belong.

And it gets me thinking how sometimes life hands us terrible plots where our heart literally bleeds and our lives are crushed. After certain blows most of us wish there was a tower we could lie in and hide in. And never have to see the world and know of its heartbreak. But then if we live life in hiding, what stories are there to tell, what life was there to live? Aren’t the most rewarding happy endings those we that didn’t come easy, those you had to fight for to achieve?

The truth is this story is why every girl dreams of a guy that will go above and beyond to conquer her heart. Someone who will not just sit still but who will climb the highest mountain just to make her see that she is everything to him. And what must a girl sacrifice in return – time. A girl must sit and wait. Because it won’t happen over night and I promise you it won’t be easy. Maybe you have to fall into deep sleep for years till finally there is one who decides to wake you up with true love’s first kiss. But in that moment, like Aurora, you will know that the prince you danced with once upon a dream was always worth waiting for.

Snow White a naive soul with an innocent heart sings convinced that someday her prince will come. She goes on merrily with her life with out care never quite prepared for the events that transpired next. And she finds herself easily lost in an unraveling ending.

Sometimes we too are so naive that we never see the old fragile witch, who hides behind an easy trap, who comes at us only to steal our happiness away. And once you’re in too deep where the loss of everything is imminent do you lose hope and faith and believe that all is lost? Does your heart grow cold and do you become so bitter and cynical that you give up on love completely?

We can surround ourselves with the best version of seven little men that come in the form of girlfriends who will do anything to get us through heart wrenching times. But what good is someone else’s faith if we are the one’s who don’t believe? Maybe our poisoned apple comes in the form of our own insecurities. Because once the dust has cleared was it not us that built the 100 ft tall walls that fence us in and not let us take leaps of faith.

What if you get handed life in the form of a poisoned apple will you just plummet into the black hole forever? My point is bad things will happen, people will hurt you, happiness can be lost… but hope should always live on. Because like Snow White, we too, among all things must believe that someday our prince will come.

Jasmine and Aladdin met under incredible circumstance. And when asked on a magic carpet ride Jasmine still asks if it’s safe. Aladdin reassures her and asks of her to trust him. And she does. And together they discover a whole new world. The decision to make someone an official part of your life is a risk. Love is the greatest risk you’ll ever take. After all we don’t know the journey that lies ahead.

But if it weren’t for the leaps of faith that we take we would never be able to see the wonders of the world. We all ask for our hearts not to be broken, for our souls not to be hurt, for our hands to be held, and our love to be cherished. So at times we must brace ourselves, close our eyes, and just jump in and let life surprise us. The ride on a magic carpet ride might be thrilling, and frightening all at the same time, you might loop and twist in ways you never thought possible but if you just hold tight you might just discover a whole new world of your own.

Ariel and Eric are among the odd couples of the fairy tales. A little Mermaid falls in love with a human. Two people from different worlds. Who by anyone’s standards could never be in love. And yet she finds a way to make the unimaginable happen. And as a girl, she stands before him hoping that he will love her just the same. That he will see that all she wants is to be a part of his world.

And isn’t that what we all want, someone who will love us for us? Every quirk and every trait that makes us stands apart. So for those “Erick’s” of the world that are too shy, like Sebastian, my advice is go ahead and Kiss the girl or you’re gonna miss the girl. Because not every girl who has everything under the sea, will be willing to do everything and anything to be a part of your world.

Cinderella spends her nights lost in a dream. A wish her heart makes. But her days she spends covered in dust and chores. Her reality is that startling. Surrounded by mean step sisters, and a mean old step mother she is robbed of her happiness. In dreams you will lose your heartache. In life you will lose yourself if you don’t believe and have hope in love. And when the day came for her to find her wishes coming true they ripped apart her dress, shred the sleeves, and tore the necklace off her neck. She found herself covered in distress and in tears when her fairy god mother appeared. And she was reassured that with a little bit of magic she too could have a happy ending.

Now, I wish I could tell you the same will happen to you. That with magic and a little bit of hope your pumpkin will turn into a carriage. That your rags will turn into a breathtaking gown. And that those flip flops on your feet will become glass slippers. But the truth is things don’t happen effortlessly. We have to find our own wand and make our own magic happen. We can’t sit and just cry, we have to get up, brace ourselves and make the fairy tale come true. But for that to happen you have to believe that love is worth the fight. That like Cinderella sang: No matter how your heart is breathing, if you keep on believing… that dream that you wished will come true.

Beauty and the Beast. Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Belle dreams of a world far from her own, something rare but worth searching for. And the Beast waits in a castle for the spell to break, for a star to fall, for someone to love. And with the twists and turns of their stories, their paths cross, and their hearts are intertwined. And the beauty that lies within is the one that makes their love shine.

So maybe there isn’t a prince who waits in an enchanted castle for you. But we are usually blind to that sort of magic. We search desperately for the other half that completes us sometimes never realizing that they were there all the time just waiting to be found. When Belle thinks all they had is lost, she finally says I love you. And he transform into his true self.

But what about you? Do you too, wait too long to say what you really feel? People seldom say I love you and when they do it’s too late or love goes. And then what is it you have left?

We all search for love frantically like it’s a complicated puzzle waiting to be solved. And we obscure what could be purely simple. But the most beautiful and rare love could lie right in front of you and you cease to believe in it just because you’re vision is blurred. What you’ve been longing for could be written in BIG BLOCK LETTERS in front of you but you might miss it because you still want things to be clearer. And what if you get to the end of the story and in the blink of an eye that person is gone? Then what?

Sometimes we just have to close our eyes, and open our heart. And let love find its way to you. And when it has don’t resist it, don’t fight it. Just believe in it. Because as certain as the sun rising in the east love is as true as it can be.

The best thing about being the author of your life is that you get to write your story. But like I’ve said before we write in pen. The choices you make in life won’t always bring you a happy ending every time. Fairy tales do exist in slight form because love does exist, but so does hardship, and life, and break ups. Realistically speaking no one in this system lives happily ever after. There are challenges, there are problems, and there is tribulation along the way. But if we don’t believe in love whether it be because we’ve been hurt or it has yet to knock on our door, then what is it you believe in?

Truth is Love isn’t easy but it’s the only thing in life worth fighting for. So hold on tight and don’t let go. Treasure that person in your life who loves you among all things. That person who truly believes in you, who sees you shining even in the dark. Who lives and breathes to make you happy even if at times they fail. Who wears their heart on their sleeve for you sometimes not being able to edit themselves. Who is willing to go above and beyond to prove their love to you tripping over obstacles. Cherish that. Treasure that. Value that. Because not everyone has that. Some people wait their whole lives for what you may let slip away.

So please, go find your happy ending...

And no one will ever break your heart again...

I stood in front of the mirror and looked at all sides of the dress. A perfect (color non-existing-other-than-in-weddings) bridesmaid dress. A chiffon, one shoulder piece that I wont regret in wearing, when on the corner of my eye I observed a soon-to-be-bride stepping up to the platform, where she proceeded to twirl, mesmerized, while her company ooed and awed.

I smiled at my mom and said “always a bridesmaid never a bride”. She looked at me puzzled partly because she doesn’t understand English and because if she did I’m pretty sure she’d give me the same look.

Till I was 15 I had this innocent notion of love. I seriously believed you'd meet someone, you'd fall in love, and everything would end in a happy ending. After one too many fairy tales you begin to believe that love flourishes out of thin air and background music. That you casually bump into someone at your favorite coffee shop. Your coffee spills, and you both kneel down to clean, apologizing, both look up at the same time as music begins to play in the background. You look intently into their eyes, as the score makes its climax, and you realize he/she is the one. Birds sing, the sun rises, the flower blooms, the story begins.

Quite frankly till that age I was biased. All I knew of love was my parent’s story and theirs is such a beautiful one… it set the bar pretty high. Needless to say after my first broken heart, the illusion of it all crashed, that foggy midst I’d been walking in cleared. And I realized love was a little bit more complicated than butterflies in your stomach. After a series of failures you can find yourself jaded. You feel like you’ve lost your ability to be loved. Quite frankly, sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever get it right. There are only so many times you can wind a ball and miss before you get taken out of the game.

Sometimes reality can get in the way of our faith. You’re hope can fail, boyfriends can cheat, people can disappoint. And it’s in these moments where you just want to roll your eyes, drop the act, and just be cynical. But then what??? After you accept the fact that life isn’t fair, do you just become bitter and let someone break you indefinitely?

“¿Que dices?” my mom interrupts my thoughts.
“Nada.” I smile back at my mom and blink back the tears.

I look once more at the bride and sigh deeply. So maybe love isn’t like the movies. Maybe first kisses aren’t accompanied by a full orchestra. Maybe you just hit and miss over and over till one day God has mercy on you and you finally get it right. They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. And maybe they have a point. Because love is what keeps the world from completely unraveling in front of us. It’s what makes life and every struggle worth enduring. And no matter how jaded a past relationship can make you feel you have to believe in something. We sometimes, against all odds, must defend the idea that love exist. That in a dessert a flower can bloom.

Love is the greatest risk you’ll ever take. But you’ll be stronger because of it. And if you love whole heartedly eventually life will surprise you, and you, its greatest skeptic, will once believe in love again. Because one day someone will come along and it’ll pay off… and no one will ever break your heart again.

That same old love song

Sitting a cross from each other on our way back home my best friend and I find ourselves immersed in conversation:
"I wish you could shop for men like you do shoes online or the perfect dress" My friend says looking up from a magazine.
I laughed. "Even better. Narrowing down the search by category, color, size, and style."
"And price!" she added.
"Accompanied by a Disclaimer and the Return Policy"

Sometimes we search for love the way we do clothes in a catalog. We go on a quest to find the perfect guy who measures up to everything we want. We all want that perfect breathless fit. But it is in the search that we are often misled.We misread instructions, mistake the shape and colors, and find that what we ordered isn’t at all what we wanted to end up with. On paper anyone is a sweet talker and Prince Charming. But looks can be deceiving. Behind that wonderful face can be a heart that doesn’t know how to love. So we set certain standards and when they aren’t met we are disappointed, left with an unwanted item, searching frantically for the receipt.

After a long and complicated return policy, after a break up, we reset and restart. Somehow always sure that if we just turn the page he will turn up. But what if you get to the last page with out finding someone to love? Do you expand your search to another site, another catalog, or do you wait for next month’s issue?

“What do you want in a man? What are you looking for?” My friend asks me. I sigh, “I just want someone who is honest. I don’t want someone who is perfect. I want someone who keeps their promises and their word. I don’t need the moon and the stars. I need hugs and kisses. No games, no pride, just kindness and loyalty and love. Pure unconditional love."

She thinks about it for a second and then says: “Yes that’s perfect…. You know how people say there’s always a perfect person out there for everyone; well I seriously think mine is hiding from me!” She tells me jokingly. And I laugh. “Yes, well, stop searching for Prince Charming or a guy to wake you from a deep sleeve, instead love the one that loves you for being you.”

It is said that love is the hardest habit to break and the craving most difficult to satisfy. And maybe that’s true. But it’s also true that sometimes all you need is a broken heart to realize that something even better, in front of your eyes is just waiting to be found.

In the end we all have the option of returning or discarding unwanted items.But even if that’s the case, we must not give up our hope and faith in love. Turn that dead end street into a turning point. That love gone wrong into a lesson. That shattered dream into a memory. And that same old love song into inspiration. Follow your heart and take chances, because you just never know how absolutely perfect something can turn out to be.

It never gives up on you

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have let go at some point so you can move forward…

It was a long and cold lazy afternoon. I found myself immersed in conversation with my cousin. We were sitting in the living room across from each other when he looked up from his phone and simply asked: “How do you decide to give up on someone? How do you know its time to let go?”

I sipped my chamomile tea and sighed. “I don’t think you give up on the actual person. I think we give up on the circumstance. Because if you love someone, you love them unconditionally. But we’re only human. I guess we just fail when our faith gets tested.”

We fall in love with love at a very young age. We live content with hand picked daisies and heart shaped letters. We welcome butterflies, dreams, and ideals. We paint castles and ever-afters. We allow our hands to be held, our deepest secrets to be known, and we share our laughter and our sorrows. We open up the way a flower blooms in spring. We find someone to love, to share, to miss, to be with. And happiness overflows our lives.

But then the storms come. And in its path weakens our foundations, erases the memories, and breaks all faith and hope. And we are left with pieces of what once was. So we give up. We stop clearing the debris and create more instead.

Now the question is do we grow weary to the point where our limits are surpassed by choice? I think it’s both a conscious and unconscious choice. We sometimes want to make things work so bad it hurts. But you don’t put up with so much because you are blind to it. It’s just sometimes you love someone that much. That purely.

You’ll never leave where you are until you’ve decided where you’d rather be. And sometimes that choice is with out them. To be with out her or him. Because all you really want in life is to be happy and some how you're mind is convinced your happiness does not lie there anymore.

So how to time it and bow out gracefully? You can’t. There’s no magic equation or solution to the issue. You just have to do it to save what is left of your heart. Giving up doesn’t mean that you weren’t strong enough. It just means you realized you don’t deserve the pain anymore. And even if your heart breaks to pieces you just have to move on. If someone isn’t there for you, you have no choice but to let them go.

So yes, it happens. We allow the rain to fall enough, we let it pour right over our heads instead of ducking for cover. We open up the door to defeat and to doubts, we allow negativity to consume us. Till one day you realize you just can’t take it anymore and that something has to give. And you walk away because that’s the cowardly thing to do. And let’s face it in trial most of us are cowards.

But love doesn’t end because you choose to walk away. Its threads linger in our intertwined stories. You are either the victim left in the middle of the rubble or you are the victim walking away from the crash site. Regardless both are wounded, both are hurting.

One thing remains the truth sometimes it takes a fall to know where we stand. And regardless of how black and blue you are left the truth is love will never give up on you. No matter how much you give up on it. Like the tide coming and going, it will grace your shore again.

Battle scarred

It’s unbelievable how much things can change in a year – my friend said.

I sipped my hot coco and smiled “Yea. Your whole world can flip around. The rug can be pulled right under you when you least expect it.”

Imagínate lo imaginable y la vida te sorprenderá. My father told me that once. And its true imagine the unimaginable and life will out do you. One day you wake up and you find yourself missing the good old lunch box days. Standing on your fathers toes dancing and twirling. Sitting on your mothers lap. And that tight grip of your fathers hand of a time where nothing and no one could hurt you or
break you.

Getting older comes with its challenges. When your world turns upside down, in a matter of seconds you can lose your grasp on reality. We end up with more baggage than we can carry. And though we wish otherwise life doesn’t come with directions at every road, stop, or crossing.

Personally, the past years have been a rollercoaster ride for me health wise. And I’ve lost many battles just like I’ve won some. I wish I could describe the emotional toll it takes on you. But unless you are physically going through it – you can’t even dare imagine. But I have to say one of the hardest things to do has been to move forward. For me my life was forever changed since that night that everything fell apart. The exit wounds of the unraveling have left me scarred.

And it happens. One moment can define your life so much it’s as if it forever becomes the climax in our lives. That one epic moment in your life becomes the division, the period between sentences, a moment, a partition that will forever be the first thing you think about when you’re telling a story. You find yourself beginning every anecdote with “before” it happened and “after” it happened. For some it’s a bad breakup, for others the loss of a loved one. Or maybe even a life threatening illness. It’s as if every story we get ready to tell is only justified by mentioning it. And that what may seem obvious to us won’t be to who we are talking to unless we mention it.

Every day I wake up and I look into the mirror my reflection troubles me. There is this long an unmistakable scar that runs down my neck. It marks the battle that has been fought. But as palpable as it is, my scar is healed. My wounds aren’t opened though their stain forever blots my skin.

Guys share their stories as candid times and talk about emergency stitching like if they were knitting a sweater. But I suppose most of us hold a scar from our childhood. A scrape knee, a fail at a trick, a trip during a run. Those scars, now healed, are accompanied by laughter and the lightheartedness of times.

For every scar there is a story. But the scars within, the ones no one sees, the ones you hide those are the wounds that leave us black and blue. Battle scars that come with the years like the rain comes with spring. That life causes and at the same time, with time, it heals

My sisters keeper

In the cookies of life, sisters are the chocolate chips!

“Here” – my sister says as she gives me a cup of hot chocolate. “I added marshmallows.”

“Thanks” I say as I sit up in bed to drink wiping off the tears.

“Maybe this will help” She leaves the room and within minutes comes back with her own pillow and lays down right next to me. Hands me a box of tissues and turns on the TV and we proceed to watch an old Fred Astaire movie.

She isn’t one of many words. But this is her way of saying I’m here for you. Growing up with her had its ups and downs. But I have to say moments like these I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

We are very different her and I. Six years apart to be exact. She’s not emotional or an over analyzer. She’d rather you not hug her or kiss her. It’s her way. She’s always been that way. But in every tragedy of my life she is the one person that keeps me grounded.

In the past two years she’s not only taken the role of my sister but also has become like a second mother to me. Getting sick took not only a toll on me but in my family. In her in particular. She’s become a caregiver and nurse; who shifts her time everyday so that the load of a chronic illness is not a burden on just one person. She slept on the floor of the hospital for a whole year somehow proving she does love me. To me she is the gift to my heart. Both a defender, and a listener, and a conspirator. A sharer of life’s greatest moments and its greatest sorrows.

I once read a card that said: At times it feels like you’re the gum stuck in the bottom of my shoe. “I didn’t ask for you. I don’t know how you got there, but I can’t get rid of you so I might as well live with you…” And it’s true having a sister you know comes with many quarrels and annoyances that would sink any friendship but never a sisterhood. No, sisters stick together through thick and thin under an unannounced loyalty pact. Sticking up for each other at all times. No one can pick on her, no one but you.

The gift of a sister is a treasure beyond compare. When mom and dad don’t understand a sister always will. She teaches you how to double team your parents and how to get away with anything. The ties between sisters will always be some of the strongest bonds. And though growing up she would break, borrow, tell on, and monopolized the bathroom making you late all the time… you love her unconditionally.

“She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you’re smiling even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she’s the reason you wish you were an only child” –Barbara Alpert