My father, Mendek Rubin, grew up in a little town in Poland between the two world wars. When my daughter interviewed him for an elementary school project about immigration and asked him what surprised him most when he first came to America, he answered, “I couldn’t believe that people ate dessert every day and didn’t think anything of it.”

Last week, I shared a story about my father’s spirit visiting me a few hours before he passed away. One of the messages he came to impart was that I shouldn’t be afraid to let my light shine. Although I feel a little self-conscious sharing this, the truth is, we are all beings of boundless light.