A “Glad to Be Alive” Party
In 2004, our family received news that stops the breath.
A melanoma diagnosis.
The kind of prognosis that rearranges your priorities overnight.
For years we lived with uncertainty. There were hopeful moments and frightening ones. There were stretches where the future felt narrow and fragile.
After ten years, we made an unusual decision.
We held a “Glad to Be Alive” party.
It wasn’t a denial of reality. It wasn’t pretending everything was fine. It was an intentional act of gratitude in the presence of impermanence. It was our way of saying: We are still here. This breath matters.
Since then, I’ve come to see something more.
Why reserve that celebration for rare milestones? Why wait for a medical scare, a survival story, or the brink of loss?
Each morning we wake up breathing is already enough.
A quiet, internal “Glad to be alive” party can become a daily practice. Not loud. Not performative. Just a simple orientation toward gratitude before the complaining mind gets traction.
We all know that mind — the one that scans for what’s wrong, what’s missing, what could be better. That reflex of dissatisfaction seems built into us. It has its evolutionary usefulness. But left unattended, it narrows our field of vision and hardens the heart.
Beginning the day with “I’m glad to be alive” widens that field again.
Of course, this practice is easier when we are free — when we have choices, safety, and conditions that suit us. It is much harder when we are under constraint, oppression, illness, or loss. We should never minimize that reality.
And yet, as long as breath is present, something extraordinary remains.
This life — fragile and temporary — is also astonishing.
Impermanence is not just a threat; it is what makes each sunrise unrepeatable. It is what makes this conversation, this step, this shared moment impossible to duplicate.
A daily “Glad to be alive” party does not deny suffering.
It gives us strength to meet it.
It is nourishment for courage.
Medicine for complaint.
Ground for compassion.
It is simply this:
We woke up.
We are breathing.
We are here.
Glad.
To be alive
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