A common icebreaker question is “what’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?” This is an easy answer for me, though it used to be a hard one. This year, over Labor Day weekend, my family came down to visit me. We had the whole pack show up – my parents, my younger brother, my grandmother, and my aunt. Since Labor Day weekend was only a few weeks after the start of school, and I’m in my first year, seeing my family and knowing that I’d have to leave them again really soon was kind of hard on me. It’s no secret that to me, family is something very important, and I’d do anything for any of them.

Naturally, I cried a little. I didn’t want to go back to school and I wanted to stay next to my parents forever – something that I thankfully moved away from after spending more time in college and finding my friend group. But that weekend, I cried to no end in the bathroom and at night before falling asleep. I shared a bed with my aunt, and she hugged me and told me that everything was going to be all right. She was right.

But that wasn’t the only thing she told me that night. She told me she was proud of me, and told me that she loved me like I was her own daughter. That stopped me from crying, and I started thinking about that. It’s the highest compliment I’ve ever received – and even though I love my aunt with all my heart, it never occurred to me just how much of an influence she has had in my life. My aunt is unmarried and has no children of her own but that has never stopped her from living her life to her fullest.

She’s been with me every set of the way, just like my actual mom has. She’s my mom’s older sister and my godmother, and she was always showering me with love and affection from the very day I was born. When my mom, the breadwinner of the family, had to work late nights and my dad had to run errands, it was her house that I stayed at. It was her house I slept over at when I was a toddler and her bed where we pretended to be stranded on a ship in shark-infested waters.

My aunt Halia (Ukrainian for Anna) would take me on weekend trips to the botanical garden, and we’d always end up geting ice cream every time. It was her feet I stepped on when dancing around her living room. It was her house I biked to when I first learned to bike, and her car that I practiced on when I first learned to drive. Some weeks, I text her more then I text my parents.

She’s been my shoulder to cry on and my support system for so many years. Some of my fondest memories are of her teaching me to play piano, of singing together, and of playing monopoly on her sunny porch with my grandma. She would always let my brother and I cut her bushes into messy shapes, and she’d tell us stories that made our eyes grow wide. Every time my brother and I would come home after spending hours at her place, my parents would ask us “what did Halia tell you guys this time?” My brother and I would repeat the stories back. A good handful of them would be about Daisy, the elephant that lived in my aunt’s basement but somehow, we never got to see.

Now, though, it’s her advice I rely on as I navigate life as a young woman. I ask myself what she would do in my situation. I can tell her anything, and she’ll give me her honest opinion back, never shying away from what she thinks this right. Even when we disagree, just talking to her and hearing her side of things helps to broaden my view. When we go on vacations together, we bond over laughing about the silliest things to discussing world politics and heartbreaking topics.

I’ve been told that my mom and my aunt weren’t very close for a while, and that all of the sudden, I came and my aunt wanted to be more involved. My parents chose her as godmother after a lot of thought – my mom as two other sisters, one who she’s very close with. Somehow, though, I ended up with my aunt Halia as a godmother, and brother got my mom’s younger sister. I think about what my life would have been like without her influence, and I honestly can’t imagine it. I don’t know who I’d be or where I’d be.

I was very lucky to be blessed with a mother who is my best friend and a father who is my world. I have a brother who I love and so many extended family members that I have great times with. One of those members, however, stands out a little from the rest. She’s more like a second mother to me, and insanely happy to be her daughter, too. Happy Valentine’s Day and happy early birthday to one of the strongest, smartest, prettiest, wittiest, and most loving women I know. You deserve the world, and I hope one day I can give that to you.