"There's no other love like the love for a brother. There's no other love like the love from a brother.” ~ Terri Guillemets

When my brother was seven years old, I came barging into his life. Unexpected and abruptly, I came crawling into this amazing family of three. With both my parents carrying a fulltime job, the responsibility of taking care of me fell onto his hands. He wasn’t too happy about changing a baby girls’ diapers and it was hard for him to accept another person intruding his life. The seven year gap between us never helped our position and it was all just so hard for a seven year old to take in. I mean just imagine a seven year old trying to communicate with a baby who didn’t even say her first words yet. However, we learned to accept each other and this immense age gap from a very young age, ultimately creating one of the most balanced relationships I’ve ever experienced.

Through every single up and down in my life I knew I could always count on my brother. Even to this day, with him living in Toronto and me in Georgia, separated by hundreds of miles, I feel more connected to him than ever.  We aren’t able to physically see each other for most days of the year, we don’t speak all that often — we have gone as long as a month without even a text message — but I still know that he’s always there for me. Siblings share relatively 50 percent of the same genes, but the relation they share during their lifetime has no correlation to this biology. The connection is hard to describe in a single word. It’s the comfort you feel when you sit in pure silence, yet you both know exactly how the other is feeling. It’s picking up right where you left off, even if it’s been weeks, months or years since the last meaningful conversation. It’s the knowledge that, at the end of the day, you’ll always be able to call on that person for support.

As Jeffrey Kluger once said in a Time Magazine, “From the time they are born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They are our scolds, protectors, goads, tormentors, playmates, counselors, sources of envy, objects of pride”[1]. Siblings are the only people in the world who know what it's like to have been brought up the way you were. No one else can relate to us better than our siblings. And that’s exactly why they can tell us right from wrong and guide us through all of life’s challenges. And trust me this concept wasn’t that easy for me to accept. My relationship with my brother included all the fights and arguments, the “tattle telling” and slamming doors on each other. But then it also included him changing my diapers when I was a baby, putting me to sleep, and hugging me when I needed it the most. This mix of emotions and memories are exactly what makes a sibling bond so special and unique.

I have this vivid memory of my brother putting me to sleep that makes me smile every time I recall it. You might be wondering what was so special about him putting me to sleep. It was the fact that my brother is hands down the worst singer in the universe. I wouldn’t let him ever forget how bad he was at singing, yet he would never quit singing. I would put him down so much that he basically lost all hopes in trying to sound good. That night I just couldn’t fall asleep, and before I knew it, my brother was right next to me singing to me until I fell asleep. It wasn’t that his singing made me sleep, but what comforted me was his presence, the fact that he put all his work aside, and tried to do what he was terrible at to put me to sleep. A sibling bond means that your not afraid to sound wierd or dumb in front of each other to make the other one happy. And it was exactly that attitude that I loved about my relationship with my brother.

Underneath all the meaningless fights, there is a lot of unspoken love. Siblings have your back, and older siblings are basically born to look out for you. Whether you get your heart broken, you need an alibi, or you’re looking for some wisdom, older siblings are always there.

[1] Kluger, Jeffrey. The New Science of Siblings. Time Magazine, July 10, 2006