1. For being my best friends since the beginning.
As the youngest of us five cool cats, I feel so blessed to have come into a family with four built-in best friends (special thanks to my mom and dad for still wanting another child after having Sam). We could have hated each other and fought all the time, but we were blessed with amazing parents who taught us differently. I will never forget the countless memories we’ve made, ranging from building train sets together, trying to annoy mom and dad, dancing in the car, knocking on each other’s shared bedroom wall as a way of saying hello without physically talking to each other, to that one SpongeBob reference we kept making on a six-hour road trip (“Ma, what are they selling?! They’re selling chocolates!!”). Best of all though, is how pretty much every moment we share together is a “you had to be there” moment and I love it. No one knows me quite as well as you guys and you’ve helped bring out my social side and also toughen me up through all the cruel jokes that still continue to this day.
2. For being my role models.
It’s no doubt that we are all hard-workers, which we were raised to be, but each of you are living wonderful lives and should be very proud of yourselves. From watching each of you grow up, I’ve gotten to see you progress and begin new chapters of your lives. I’ve watched all four of you graduate high school (thankfully we all made it that far), two of you graduate college and a third coming up at the end of the semester, and one of you land a job at the hospital and now you’re going back to school. It’s been incredible to see how far you’ve all come. I aspire to be as successful as each of you are already.
3. For always taking care of me.
I love that no matter what my situation is, I always have you guys to help me out. Lauren, now that I go to school in Cleveland, you get to be the lucky one that I turn to when I’m sick or just need a girl’s night with my favorite sister. On a particularly rough night in the beginning of the year, you gave me your Netflix account so that I could binge watch sappy movies all night to avoid the drama I should have never let affect me. Adam, you’re always willing to jam out in the car or take me out for mini-golf, etc. when we’re both bored at home. And even after I made a careless mistake that one day over break, you still bought me a burger and wouldn’t let me pay you back. And thank you for letting me “borrow” (by this I mean “keep” since it was an extra…good news is I still wear it) a shirt during my recovery since my face was so swollen I couldn’t fit my own shirts over my head-and sorry for spilling chocolate pudding on two of your shirts in one day. This is exactly why I feel so blessed to have each one of you as my siblings. We all make mistakes and we have our small feuds from time to time but we always forgive each other later- and by later I mean within a few minutes, usually. And on occasions, we stick up for each other, and I love that. I can think of several times where one of you has stuck up for me, despite my wishing I had stuck up for myself, and I owe you big time for each of those times.
4. For our talks that occurred whenever, wherever.
There have been so many talks throughout the past several years but I think one of my favorites occurred on New Year’s Eve 2016. Sam, you told me that night that you had a discussion with mom on Christmas about how much more optimistic I had become over the past couple years. I never realized, until that moment, that others noticed. I thought it was just me that realized that I had started counting my blessings and lessened the complaints. This talk also helped me realize that although I’m quiet and try to keep the attention off me, I was still being noticed by my entire family. Lauren, you’re my go-to when it comes to pretty much anything school related. You are always there (whether it be in person or over the phone) to help me out and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.
5. For being the best advice-givers.
This one kind of goes along with #4 but I love that I can talk to any of you, extended relatives included, and receive solid advice in return. There has yet to be a situation where one of you hasn’t had some advice that helped me resolve the situation. It is such a blessing to know that you guys are more than willing to help me out at any given time. One of the biggest topics I need advice for is dealing with friend drama, and the most common response is: “You don’t need them.” Thinking about this, you’re absolutely right. Including cousins, I have about 20 or so best friends. I wish I was better at giving advice, but most often, I haven’t been in your situation yet and therefore, don’t know how to help.
These are just a few of the things I wanted to thank you guys for. I love telling people, when they ask about our family, that not only do I have four older siblings but that I have four best friends who are always there for me no matter what. Two of us live in Cleveland, two are still in Pittsburgh, and one is still in Clarion for just a bit longer, but despite the distance we’re still as close as ever and I don’t think anything will change that. I think now that I’m older and basically on my own, we’ve become even closer. If you don’t believe me, I worked with Sam for a month over a winter break and I think we bonded over how much we can annoy my mom at work more than we used to do when you were home for the weekend/ on break and I was still in high school. And now every time we see each other, our main goal is to see how much we can annoy each other because we both think it’s funny. So, a million times THANK YOU to three of the best brothers and one incredible sister. You all mean the world to me and life would be so different without all of you, and that’s not even an exaggeration.