When the first words of greeting you receive from someone as you step into a room are “You’re an old hag lady”, the expected feelings of hurt or hatred would be apparent, right? You would wonder why they would say such a thing, be so incredibly rude, but it is just part of the routine when it comes from a sibling.

Love and hate, yin and yang, can’t begin to do justice to this complex relationship. Any act of kindness is shoved aside, unappreciated. Words of comfort or praise are warped, their masks unyielding as if they have some kind of reputation to uphold. Some resort to the reasoning that it is human nature to mistreat the ones we love most, but to deny this love on any and every occasion is quite unusual, yet so evident to those of us with the pleasure (or displeasure) of having siblings.

Picture a fair-weathered friend; the kind that always supports you when things are going well, but with a turn of events comes the turn of their back. Now picture that really spectacular friend, the one that will laugh with you and cry with you, by your side for just about anything.

Here’s the interesting part: imagine your sibling, nagging at you and culminating a pit of anger at the bottom of your stomach with every word he or she says, when things are “just fine.” When they make a turn for the worse, you feel a hand on your shoulder, words spoken almost sheepishly, coming from… your sibling?

My brother is 13 years old, and he is a member of chorus and drama at his school; passionate about singing, he does it constantly, even if it’s singing a math problem to a techno tune. This can get annoying for obvious reasons, especially when the noise becomes just that: noise. Not a song, not a melody, noise. But when he was in the hospital, what did he give me?

A candy bar. Unable to eat anything, he went down to the gift shop and bought me a candy bar. And never has a piece of chocolate meant so much to me.

Troublesome times are the only ones where people really stop and think about the people that they care about the most, the people that affect their lives so tremendously. It’s a shame that it takes unsavory events for siblings’ masks to melt away, but if we could find a way to see through them and act like civilized human beings, life would be a lot better.

It’s too bad I don’t have superpowers.