I would be remiss to write fifty memories and not write about my sister. She has been my biggest champion, critic, companion, supporter, bringer of snacks, chaos creator, co-conspirator… The list goes on. And on. And on some more.

There is no one quite like the great Mrs. Lizzardo (my Dad’s name for her when we were teens). She had a heart of gold, yet she describes herself as … heartless? She’d be the one who pulls the plug on any one of us… Because it has to be done but she’ll sit with us until the end. She’d crack jokes about it (and probably is reading this) but I know it would destroy her (especially if it is me because I am her favourite, well, second to her daughter, Ardon), but I’m okay with that. Ardon is pretty fantastic.

I remember my parents bringing her home from the hospital. Or at least, I have a memory of it. Whether it is real or imagined, I have no idea. I remember it being the house I initially grew up in, and I was sitting on the couch, sort of at the bottom of the stairs. Mom came in and was holding her. She placed her in my arms, and she was tiny. I had to be as well, as I was a couple months shy of three years old. I remember thinking I was a big sister and I had to do everything to protect her. She had the sweetest nose I’d ever seen, and she didn’t look like an alien, like our older brother had said she would.

We always had her ask for things when we were kids. Like most families, there is a ‘favourite’, whether parents admit it or not. In our house, it was her. Little and perfect, sweet, and cute, Dizz, was ‘it’. You couldn’t help but like her, she was sweet, she was nice, and I felt compelled to do everything for her. Whether it was talking, cutting things, or her share of the work (except maybe shelling her peas in the summer). This continued into her teens. She, of course, figured things out and was quite chatty. It may not have worked in our favour.

I jest! She is great and she learned things – even cooking. I remember the first time she made dinner for her now partner. It was a disaster. We tried to eat it, but she declared it was sh!t. I cannot remember what we ate instead – she probably had cereal. That was her go-to when it was ‘choose your own adventure night’ for dinner.

My sister has always been there, as siblings are, but through all my surgeries, issues, craptastic boyfriends, losses. She is always the first one to celebrate my wins and pick up my pieces when things fall apart. When we lost the first baby, having to un-tell those we told was terribly hard. When we got pregnant with our son, we chose to not tell anyone until we were twelve weeks along. She was saddened as she told me that she wanted to recognize all of the good things that happened and be there to cry with me during any of the times of sorrow.

She is special. I don’t often tell her enough. I know I have been fortunate to have a sister I get along with. While there have been times when we haven’t gotten along (the underwear incident and the summer our parents separated us for a week), for the most part, we have elected to be together. Moving so we could share rooms, having the same friends throughout school, and working at the same place in our early twenties.

We have shared a lot of good times over the course of our lives. Like the times I baited her with buttons and tried to catch her in a cardboard box at work (like the Taco Bell commercial from the late 1990s). Or when we used to shoot one another with elastic bands when we worked together at the warehouse. We’ve cried too, like when we didn’t know what kind of feminine hygiene products to buy when we first moved out because Mom had always just bought them, or when her daughter was hurt in a terrible accident, and we didn’t know what was going to happen.

We were born sisters, but we’ve always chosen to be friends. She has also been the number one reader of all of these memories. Liking every post, commenting on the Facebook posts when she remembers the events (as she’s been involved in so many of them). Sister of mine, thank you. Thank you for always being there, even when I’m not. For helping with Mom, for helping me, for helping Dad. Showing up every single day for your family when it seems impossible to take one more step. You give tirelessly, with love, with heart, and with integrity. You are the kind of person people could only hope to be. I love you, and I’m so very glad you’re my sister.