Featured Articles
Open Passports, Open Minds
by Sally Macdonald
Liv Fun: Vol 4 – Issue 4
You have to stand on the khaki-colored beaches of France’s northern coast to fully appreciate what happened there a lifetime ago.
Decades after the D-Day battle that marked the beginning of the end of World War II, my heart fluttered a little and I experienced a glimmer of the fear and dread that permeates the Normandy sand to this day.
We weren’t at Normandy long, my husband John and I. Just time enough to gain a new appreciation for the grit it took 150,000 Allied forces to jump out of amphibious landing craft onto the beaches, dodge a storm of bullets from above, and climb that sheer wall to face an enemy entrenched in concrete bunkers at the top.
Travel can do that for you; make the heart change course in recognition of the courage some people must conjure up to continue on through their day.
It can make you pay attention to news that doesn’t directly affect you, even years after you’ve gone home. It can deepen your understanding of the web of politics that complicates our world and remind you that things aren’t always as they seem.
And it can help you realize that everyone on earth wants pretty much the same things out of life.
Our perspective on what happened in Normandy 71 years ago took another turn a few days later and a few miles east of the battlefield beaches, at the coastal town of Arromanches.
There we saw for ourselves the ruins of a miracle.
Liv Fun
by Leisure Care
Winter 2015
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Where Love Never Dies
by Leah Dobkins
My 19-year-old daughter Hannah Rose suddenly died on March 6, 2012. After about a week, the wilted flowers that were scattered throughout my home bent their heads, mimicking my sorrow. I had trouble throwing them away, letting go of what they were. Eventually, there were no more flowers in my home. There was no more Hannah Rose.
Open Passports, Open Minds
by Sally MacdonaldYou have to stand on the khaki-colored beaches of France’s northern coast to fully appreciate what happened there a lifetime ago. Decades after the D-Day battle that marked the beginning of the end of World War II, my heart fluttered a little and I experienced a glimmer of the fear and dread that permeates the Normandy sand to this day.
The Power of Positivity
by Elana Zaiman
In the summer of 1998, my mother-in-law invited her friends to their rented West Seattle home for a brunch to welcome me, her new daughter-in-law, to Seattle. The dining table was full of green salads, fruits, hummus, and other delicacies, and the dining room was full of people I imagined I would see again over the years.