May 9, 2020, Aish.com

I didn’t know them when they were hungry and feared for their lives during the Holocaust. Their two and half years in hiding, surviving on carrots and the occasional onion skin were nine years behind them by the time I was born. At the war’s end, my mother and grandmother emerged from a dreary attic in Belgium jaundiced, their teeth in shambles. Their new life in America restored their health. Like Scarlett O’Hara, they vowed to never be hungry again. They raised my sister and me to be self-sufficient, frugal, resourceful, always ready for the unexpected, qualities that prepared us for some of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

You’ve seen kids wearing shirts that boast, “My grandma went to Italy and all she bought me was this lousy T-shirt.”  I’m not that grandma.  I want the people I’m abandoning to look forward to my absences, and to welcome me home with open arms. Finding gifts for my family has become part of the adventure - things with a touch of the exotic to help them feel a little closer to what I saw and smelled and did on my travels.  I’ve made plenty of mistakes when searching for the “perfect” gift.  This is the story of how I left home alone, meandered to Tuscany for a travel-writing class, and searched for presents that should make each recipient look forward to my next escape as much as I do.