Member-only story

The Ultimate Green Gift

That only you can create and give

Alison Acheson
4 min readOct 17, 2021
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Your version of a family story — family anecdote, family history — is yours.

To share.

When my father was recovering from a heart attack, the hardest piece for him was being unable to do the things he loved best — chopping wood, clambering around the rooftop (!), fixing things. Instead he had to go for meandering walks (not his idea of exercise!) and spend time sitting.

So he wrote his life story.

All the wonderful funny stories of he and his friends when they were little (really?? “Billy Duckworth” was an actual name?), how he convinced his father to take his old barn to the ground and rebuild so he could learn the trade of carpentry…(my grandfather was bed-bound on the other side of the house — there was not much “convincing” involved!) And how he met and wooed my mother.

I helped him create a computer file, and added photos, and he had a copy printed for each child and grandchild. They are precious.

Gift-giving time of year

Yes, we are nearing that. Last year, my family determined no more than one gift. A lot of careful thought went into each, which gave the whole meaning.

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Alison Acheson
Alison Acheson

Written by Alison Acheson

Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days With ALS--caregiving memoir. My pubs here: LIVES WELL LIVED, UNSCHOOL FOR WRITERS, and editor for WRITE & REVIEW.

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