Grateful for Life

I am grateful for life, to have the opportunity to live. Today, I finished a memoir, Salt In My Soul: An Unfinished Life, written by the late Mallory Smith. Mallory was born with cystic fibrosis, an inherent, chronic, and exacerbating illness. She was a brilliant young woman who grew up in Los Angeles, California and she loved writing, reading, surfing, and swimming in the ocean. Despite living in a critical condition for most of her life, hampering her ability to live the life she had originally dreamed of, let alone breathe easily, Mallory found a way to “Live Happy”, her motto of being. Cystic fibrosis took Mallory at the age of twenty-five, a few years she had graduated from Stanford and a year after meeting the boy she would love and call her boyfriend. She had an outstanding and supportive family, with Mallory even mentioning that having been born to them was a winning ticket in life’s lottery.

Live Happy. It’s a motto tethered to the present tense that refers to a state of being. It’s a motto to live by and to feel. Mallory found ways to live happy and be grateful that are inconceivable to most, especially for someone in good health. Mallory, I’m grateful that you lived and that you lived happy. There is hope to your story and a lesson of appreciation and compassion that your actions and words exemplified. For as long as I live, I’ll remember that…

I am grateful for life.