Thirteen years ago my life was great. I was a spoiled little five year old who got everything that she wanted in life. I didn’t have to worry about anything or anyone but myself. Well unfortunately, all of that changed. When I was informed that I wasn’t gonna be an only child anymore, I got pretty excited. "Why?", you may ask. Because I thought I was finally going to have a little sister. I was so deadset on finally having a little sister that I had planned out her name. Everything was perfect, until my parents came home from the hospital with a boy. I guess that's why they got me Samuel’s sister, because they felt bad that their gift to me was a gross boy.

Although since that day my life has changed forever, I never imagined how much it would’ve actually changed. Not only did I now have a little brother, that I DID NOT want. I had a little brother who had special needs. Now, not only was I not the baby, but I was the less important child since I had nothing wrong with me. I think the only thing going for Jared that made me love him was because he was cute. Was; past tense. He was so cute and tiny and cuddly, and pretty much like a teddy bear, or a worm; up to you to decide.

As Jared got older, he somehow got uglier and more annoying. I guess it's because he’s small that he has such a large personality. Don’t get me wrong; sometimes I love it when he acts like a jerk because it's very enjoyable to watch. But there are other times when I would LOVE to push him down the stairs to get him to shut up.

Well, I guess I’ve been too mean and my mom is probably furious at me, but honestly no matter how mad I get at Jared and how much I scream at him that I hate him or that he’s ugly, I guess he's not that bad, and I guess I do love him. It’s just his mustache.

I’ve only been in college for a week, but I’ve learned that I actually miss Jared. Now I don’t have anyone annoying me. On move in day, once my parents left, I was alone with my friend and she did something stupid and I screamed at her “JARED” until I realized that she was not Jared and I was not with my brother anymore.

Now to the reason why we are all here: I guess I’m pretty proud of Jared because he actually managed to read his whole haftorah, shocker! No, but actually, although Jared is really lazy, I know how hard he worked with Hank to learn his haftorah. How would I not know? Whenever he had Hank, I was forced to take a walk around Little Neck unless I convinced my mom to let me go to the Y.

But as I just said, Jared, I love you so much and I’m very proud of you and I cannot wait to see what’s next.