Twenty one summers ago, I was 24 years old and working as a unit head at a Montreal day camp. One afternoon, at dismissal time, I was handed an envelope by a staff member. I often got notes from the parents of my campers at the end of the day, and I was busy, so I handed it off to one of the counsellors to deal with. He opened the envelope and quickly handed it over to me. “I think this is for you,” he grinned. I grabbed it, read it, and started to cry. It was a marriage proposal and a ring. Seconds later, my then-boyfriend Lee popped out of the bushes, trailed by a friend with a video camera, and asked if I would be his wife.

Lisa and I have always been there for each other. We support and encourage each other’s successes, pick each other up when we fall and send one another texts comprised entirely of strings of emojis that somehow capture exactly what we’re trying to say. Lisa’s who I call when I’m not sure of the answer to the million dollar question, or when I’m just out of dinner ideas.

There is definitely something wrong when we find ourselves falling into the cantankerous trap; “but we don’t agree on venues and we don’t agree on menus”. Planning a family vacation can sometimes provoke angst amongst the members of the group. We have to take a...