The Forever Letter by Elana Zaiman

The Forever Letter by Elana Zaiman

Author:Elana Zaiman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: forever letter, elana zaman, alana zaman, alana zaiman, afterlife, spirit communication, communicating with loved ones, loved ones in spirit
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2017-07-17T04:00:00+00:00


Share Personal Experiences

Having had a tough first year of motherhood, Dorothy e-mailed a letter to friends after her son Elliott’s first birthday, in which she shared her personal experience as a new mother coping with hard issues. Here’s an excerpt:

It has been an amazing and trying year for me. I struggled with anxiety and depression in a big way and though I have managed to stay afloat and to do a great job with raising Elliott during his first year, I have had to really privilege taking care of myself and our little family. This means that I didn’t always do all the things I said I would do, like sending physical thank you cards, calling people or reaching out as much as I would ideally like to … 2013 was a year of hard labor, recovery, shifting and integrating new identities and roles as well as shedding old ones. It was a year of accepting limitations, reevaluating priorities, learning to let go and embracing and welcoming the present in all of its beauty, wonder and richness.

Like Dorothy, we can share our personal experiences to explain ourselves to the people we love. We can also share our personal experiences with the people we love to help them better understand themselves. In the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, seventy-six-year-old Reverend John Ames does both. Having been diagnosed with a failing heart and led to believe he has little time left on this earth, Ames writes a letter to his six- almost seven-year-old son in which he shares his personal experiences not only to explain himself but also to enable his son to better understand himself. An example of this is when Ames writes about his temper. After stating that he comes from preachers on both his mother’s and father’s side, he writes, “They were fine people, but if there was one thing I should have learned from them and did not learn, it was to control my temper. This is wisdom I should have attained a long time ago. Even now, when a flutter of my pulse makes me think of final things, I find myself losing my temper, because a drawer sticks or because I’ve misplaced my glasses. I tell you so you can watch for this in yourself.” 62

What a gentle way to share a personal experience. Here’s a shortcoming of mine. I’m not happy about it, but I’m aware of it, and I try to not let it get the best of me. If you find, someday, that you, too, have this shortcoming, know from where it comes. Don’t let it get the best of you. Be self-aware, and let your self-awareness help you to influence your actions for the good.

Sharing our personal experiences also enables us to reflect on the accomplishments of a loved one who is so much farther along on her path than we had been on our path at that same age. In “Letter to a Daughter at Thirteen,” novelist and essayist Barbara Kingsolver does just that.



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