June, 1998
| June, 1998 |
Memories of Shelly |
|
Nami Malis-Lifshitz, Shelly's aunt from
Israel, "Doda Nami" The memory of shelly I want to share is from last August, when my family and I were visiting Ann Arbor. Before the trip I tried to think about fun activities I could do with shelly, but I couldn't come up with any ideas -- I am not experienced with entertaining 7 year old kids yet. When we arrived I found out that I didn't have to worry: shelly herself had already thought about a perfect activity to do with an aunt who is an architect: She asked me if we could plan a mall together and build an architectural model of it. I thought it was a wonderful idea. The next day we went downtown Ann Arbor to an art supply store and shelly chose the cardboard, colors ,glue and all the supplies we needed for the project. Shelly was great to shop with because she did not have the usual "get me, get me" disease that most kids have. She got just what we needed, although she knew that I would get her the entire store if she wanted. We came home and went right down to to the basement to work. We planed a simple mall together. First I explained to her the basics of mall planing. She understood immediately and found particular delight in planning and putting together the movie theater, the main plaza (which had a water fountain) and the fast food court. I asked her if she wanted to do some interiors of stores and she drew beautiful Disney and Warner Brothers logos and glued than in. She also drew a very cute ice-cream store. I could see that it was hard for her to put the model pieces together .Assembling a model is not easy for an adult, and definitely difficult for a child. I also suspected that her eyesight and right hand were not 100%, but she never complained, not even once, quite the contrary--she loved doing it. She put the entire model together by herself, while I did all the cutting. We had the best time together.
I always thought that shelly will be an architect when she grows up and come to work with me. When I design a project now, I do it for the both of us. I am not as talented ,and not as brave as Shelly, so it is a great responsibility for me, but I try.
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