Our wish for March 9th: Aliyah Day of Kindness
To our community,
It’s been almost a year since Aliyah died. It’s hard to believe. We still expect her vibrancy and singing and hugs and energy around the house. Instead, this all lives in the past, in our memories and our hearts — that still feels inadequate, sad, and unfair.
As we approach this one-year milestone, we asked ourselves what our community could do to honour our daughter and mark that day. Nothing felt as though it was “enough”, and yet one wish surfaced time and again.
Our wish: Aliyah Day of Kindness
Among the stories of Aliyah we’ve heard from people in the past months — incredible gifts so many of you have given us — a common theme has been Aliyah’s kindness.
Helping people who were hurt, handmade cards, giving little presents, standing up for others who needed someone to have their back. Aliyah cared deeply about people and showed her love through her actions.
The day Aliyah died, March 9, 2022, the world lost someone special and kind. While nothing will ever make the pain of her dying go away, we have a hope that together as a community we can counterbalance some of that pain with a collective outpouring of love.
So, our wish for this March 9th is to honour Aliyah’s giving spirit: We wish for everyone to flood the world with kindness that day.
What this means is to find something that day that you can do for someone else, to help them, to deepen connection, to express your love, to just be kind. Here are some ideas of what you can plan to do:
- Buy or cook a meal for a person who might need one
- Connect with a lonely neighbour
- Donate blood (you can join “Aliyah’s A-Team” when you sign in and select Partners from My Account at https://www.blood.ca/)
- Send a note of gratitude to people or maybe some local businesses
- Donate to a cause you care about and include a heartfelt note of encouragement
- Buy a cup of coffee for the next person in line
- Have someone over for dinner who you haven’t connected with in a while
- Volunteer at a community organisation — for example, a long-term care centre or foodbank/soup kitchen/community food centre (note: these organisations generally do better with longer-term commitments, so perhaps this day can kickstart a few months of volunteering)
- Donate to Aliyah’s Fund https://torontofoundation.ca/aliyah-rotman-fund
- Donate to Sick Kids Hospital in memory of Aliyah https://fundraise.sickkidsfoundation.com/aliyah
Any idea of your own, small or large, is wonderful. Start planning now. Put a reminder in your calendar, get your whole family and friends involved (add to Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCal).
Hundreds of people putting goodness into the world will mean a huge wave of love to honour Aliyah’s memory.
