Sibling Appreciation

I've noticed a fair amount of posts and pictures lately that will have some nice quote about how important family members are and then follow it up with "Share if you love you sister." Really? I need to click "like," or "share" the photo/link to prove that I love my sister? It's so generic! She probably won't even notice that I clicked "like" or that I shared the photo.

What if you hate your sister?

What if she tore out full chapters of your undergrad textbooks and used them as kindling for campfires? Or hacked into your facebook account and changed your status to "married"... and included a photo of some random... and a sonogram. Or maybe she peed in your shoes and blamed it on the cat. Or stole your mail and started hiding all of your paycheques. Maybe she won the lottery and never told you. Maybe she slept with your boyfriend... and his dad. Or gives you Christmas presents that she stole from Dollarama. Or took every single pair of your shoes and sunk them to the bottom of Lake Ontario. Would she still be the best sister ever? No, definitely not. Would you still love her? Well, you may need to smack her first, but ultimately, yes.

Here are what my "I love my sister" posts would look like:

1) I will never forget the night when my sister watched The Ring and spent the night cuddled in my bed with the light on because she was too scared to go to sleep. It was a terrible night's sleep (seriously, have you ever tried sleeping with all of your bedroom lights on?), but I did it because I love her and I hate to see her so scared.

2) Because of my sister, I watched all seasons of "The Hills" and I can never thank her enough for bringing Lauren Conrad into my life... and Kelly Cutrone... and Ashley Paige... and Justin Bobby.  "This salad's like a party" is still one of my favourite quotes.

3) "I have a friend of a friend who can pick you up and drop you off in a field near our house." That's sisterly love right there.

4) There was the time we asked our mom to come shopping with us. Mom said she really didn't feel like going out, to which my sister replied, "Boo, you whore..." (as from Mean Girls). I was laughing on the floor for like 10 minutes.

5) There were times we had to stick together; like when we camped out in our backyard and the inside of our tent flooded. We were literally stranded on our half-deflated air mattress like Pi Patel and Richard Parker, until dad came to save us and our Tiger Beat magazines (haha, no pun intended).

My beautiful sister Amanda

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Granted, we hated each other as kids, but now that we're all grown up, our bond is stronger than ever. I can always count on her to make me laugh, and she can always count on me to listen to her when she needs to vent. There is no "perfect" sister, just one who's there when you need someone.

So I will continue to refuse clicking on anyone's FB post about recognizing how much I love my sis. She knows it, and I know it, and nothing else matters. If you want to tell someone how much they mean to you, do what I did: Make it personal, not like a Hallmark card.