It’s hard for me to describe how proud I am of my niece. Ever since she started school, she always stood out as an excellent student and amazing person. From elementary to middle school to high school, she just continued to accomplish more and more. Best of all, she is an extremely likable person, so she has never had a problem balancing her academic life with her social one. Currently, she is almost done with her first year in college, and in this short amount of time, she has already made quite a name for herself.

I think the reason that I am so close with my niece is because of the fact that I have never been able to have children of my own, I have always seen myself as her second mother (which my sister completely understands). I just feel lucky that my niece looks up to me so much and comes to me for advice on a regular basis.

To put in perspective the type of relationship we have, I recently called my niece to tell her I was going to be in Philadelphia (the city where she goes to school) on a business trip, and was wondering if we could spend some time together. She told me that she was actually going to be having a three day weekend as a result of President’s Day, so it turned out that we got to spend a ton of time with each other.