The Power of Positivity

by Elana Zaiman

Liv Fun: Vol 4 – Issue 4

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.

A few weeks later, Linda, a brunch attendee, phoned to invite me to lunch. When I asked her how it came about that she decided to call me, she said, “When I met you, I knew I wanted you in my life.”

For 15 years, we’ve been in each other’s lives. We’ve spent hours walking around Green Lake, lunching in this or that restaurant, meeting up for coffee, talking on the phone. Our topics of conversation: work, family, marriage, children, health, emotional and spiritual well-being. For 15 years, Linda has been a loving guide and a supportive friend. Shortly after we met, she put me in touch with a writer friend who introduced me to the woman who would become my writing mentor. A few years later she orchestrated an afternoon facilitated by a consultant friend to help me figure out my next career move. A friend like Linda, one does not often find.

In January 2000, five months after my first and only child, Gabriel, was born, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer, and a few weeks later had a double-mastectomy. Then there was chemo and radiation. While many of her friends were devastated, Linda maintained a positive and hopeful perspective, never giving into despair. When one drug didn’t work, she tried another.

As time progressed she added alternative therapies to her conventional treatments. She saw a healer, naturopath, chiropractor and shiatsu master. She did whatever it took to stay alive and live as healthfully as possible.

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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.

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Open Passports, Open Minds
by Sally Macdonald

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.