01
Chapter
Our family is the one thing that we all cannot live without. Humans were made to exist in tribes and groups. We literally cannot handle being all alone. We are even born into a group of people we call family.
02
Chapter
Childhood is often made up of both happy and sad times. When I think of good moments in my childhood, the first memory that pops up in my mind is when my father decided to open a fancy restaurant after we had moved to Parana.
03
Chapter
Life has a strange way of panning out. One moment you are having the time of your life, and the next, you’re all over the place. Things happen to us, whether by coincidence or for a reason, as life has a habit of throwing you lemons.
04
Chapter
Moving to Israel changed a lot of things in my life. The one thing that can help stabilize a person’s childhood is their parents. Your parents are like superheroes when you are young. They make your entire life make sense.
05
Chapter
Living a life of pain and misery from your prepubescent days is the most traumatizing way to grow up. Ever since I turned seven years old and we began living in Israel, all I ever witnessed were struggles and hardships.
06
Chapter
Having gone through such a terrible night and crying myself to sleep, it was a somber morning for me the next day. As I woke up on the morning of July 22nd in 1985, I could feel the grogginess of sleep swimming through my head.
07
Chapter
Shiva is a seven-day period that is observed in Judaism after the death of one of your immediate family members. The word itself means ‘seven’ in Hebrew. It is a tradition that includes staying at home in respect and mourning for the dead.
08
Chapter
Dealing with the loss or death of a loved one is never easy. Life is cruel in a way that it goes on even when you don’t feel like it. Throughout our lives, we go through things that make us think moving on would be difficult.
09
Chapter
Your heart always belongs to that one place you are deeply connected with. Naturally, you are more affectionate toward it. No matter how far you go from this place and how better the new location is, you will always bore a special feeling for your old place because it makes you feel at home.
10
Chapter
It’s best to leave the past where it belongs – in the past. I know, it’s easier said than done. However, you can’t move on or cherish moments that exist now. Past can be haunting, especially if it is amalgamated with bitter memories.
11
Chapter
I was around 14 or 15 when I was in my last year of middle school. My sister had just turned 22 and was all I had. Her life had been hard ever since our mother died many years before that. The effects were easily visible.
12
Chapter
Reaching the age of sixteen is always a milestone for any young adult. For me, it was the time when I decided to collect the scattered pieces of my life and rearrange them to create a better picture.
13
Chapter
Like every stage of life, youth is a time that doesn’t come twice. It’s the most fun and enjoyable time of life. You are young and happy, and you think you have all the time in the world, only to realize how deceitful that thought is.
14
Chapter
Whether you lived in those times or now, every 21-year-old has a similar mentality, especially Israeli youngsters. It is not their fault that they are young and require a certain period of time to recover from the experience of being in the army.
15
Chapter
They say that everything comes to a full circle in life, but you do not see the big picture until it is complete. In the end, everything work together for good, or at least it’s better to believe that way.
16
Chapter
A lot of people victimized by their past slip into thinking they have no control over their lives. In this kind of headspace, they feel sorry for themselves. The world seems to be against them, and they lose themselves to pity parties.
17
Chapter
The most certain aspect of life is its transience. Nothing stays forever. Everything that exists changes and is ephemeral. Change is inescapable and inevitable. We live in a stagnant universe that is constantly moving and changing.
18
Chapter
We often realize the fickleness of life when we see or hear of someone dying. The mere thought that you can never look at that person again, speak to them, be in the same room as them, hear them talk, or just never be able to connect with them in any way makes you shudder on the inside.
19
Chapter
Making a trip to your hometown, especially since you left it behind to pursue further education or a lifestyle change, find a job, or travel the world, can turn you into a mix between a tourist and a local.
20
Chapter
Travel has the potential to change us. When we travel, we experience entirely new things that transform our perspective. The people we meet, the food we try, and the culture we mingle in open our minds as we learn new information constantly and try new activities.
21
Chapter
Starting a new chapter of our lives can happen at any time, any place. All of us, at some moment, envision a better future for ourselves. It happens when we reach a point where we are fed up with our current situation.