Grandparents & Special Friends Day Reflection

For maybe the past three years or so, every time my sister’s school has held their Grandparents and Special Friends Day, I’ve been the one to go. In fact, I think I’ve been my sister’s first thought about who she wants to invite every time this day comes around each year.

The first year I thought perhaps she had invited me because both her grandparents on each side were maybe too far away to come up, and I was the next best thing. Then I got there and I saw how happy she was to see me and show me around her school, it was clearly a big deal for her to share this experience with me specifically. From then on I decided that if she were to ever ask me again, I’d make sure to be there.

It was really nice seeing the amount of thought that goes behind an event like this, one that I haven’t seen done before at any other school, not even mine. Given that I’m just her sister and not involved in raising my sister the same way her parents are, it’s nice to meet her teachers and all her school friends. It gives me a chance to see the people that are influencing her on a daily basis and that she develops integral relationships with; why she is slowly becoming the person she is. Getting to see that the environment that fosters my sister’s growth is full of people who care about her future and her as a person has brought me closer to her in ways I wouldn’t have thought it would. It has allowed me to understand all parts of Jade, not just the side that I see from her at home in a completely different setting.

I think that being there for my sister is important to show her the depth of my affections and just how much she means to me. It would have been just as easy for me to say “no” to this event because her school life and grades aren’t something I am heavily involved in, but I know just how important it would be to her that I did. Part of the reason it is in fact so important to her is that it is a part of her life that I don’t really get to see much of – another part of being Jade that she can share with me. I want her to know that no matter what it is, something big or something small, if it’s something of hers that she wants to share with me and get to know, I’ll always be there to experience it with her without a doubt.