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The Lasting Gift
by Elana Zaiman
Liv Fun: Vol 2 – Issue 4
What’s the best gift you ever received? Was it the steering wheel attached to a slab of wood your grandfather built for you when you were 4? Or was it the pearl necklace your great aunt draped around your neck at 16? Was it the weekend in Paris your wife surprised you with when you retired? Or was it the birthday party your family threw in honor of your 80th?
I’ve received many wonderful gifts over the years: toys, stuffed animals, bicycles, jewelry, clothing, kitchen appliances, money, travel and books. I’ve received gifts of words, hugs, compassion, love and presence (the complete present-ness of another). However, the gift to which I return over and over again is the letter I received from my father when I was 14. Actually, it’s a letter my father wrote to all his children: me, my sister, Sarina, and my brothers, Ari and Rafi.
This letter was no ordinary, everyday kind of letter. This was not a letter to say “hi,” a letter to say “I miss you” or “I love you.” This was not a newsy letter to fill us in on his daily doings. This letter was my father’s ethical will.
An ethical will is a letter we write to the people we love (the people we will leave behind when we die) in which we pass on our most cherished nonmaterial possessions: our values, guidance, wisdom, hopes and love.
What prompted my father to write his ethical will at the still young and healthy age of 38? No terminal illness, no pending catastrophe inspired this act. He was a healthy man in his prime, enjoying a full life as a congregational rabbi, as husband to the woman he loved since he was a teenager and as father to four children between the ages of 9 and 14. He was simply following an ancient Jewish tradition dating back to Medieval times in which fathers (and later, mothers) wrote their children letters to impart their prescriptions for living meaningful Jewish lives by following the values, rituals and traditions they deemed important.
Liv Fun
by Leisure Care
Winter 2013
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The Underpants
by Skye Moody
I’m turning six, soon graduating from kindergarten. There’s this boy from my kindergarten class who has a crush on me. Johnny Hardman tries bossing me around, for about two minutes before discovering that I’m untamable.
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The Lasting Gift
by Elana ZaimanWhat’s the best gift you ever received? Was it the steering wheel attached to a slab of wood your grandfather built for you when you were 4? Or was it the pearl necklace your great aunt draped around your neck at 16? Was it the weekend in Paris your wife surprised you with when you retired? Or was it the birthday party your family threw in honor of your 80th?
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Third Wind
by Tammy Ruggles
I was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), an eye disease that has been ever so slowly robbing me of my vision as the rods and cones in my eyes gradually die off. I got my first pair of glasses at the age of two, so I grew up knowing my vision was below average. Sometimes I felt self-conscious and embarrassed, like when I had to sit next to the teacher’s desk so I could see the blackboard.