Abby Dockum

According to Webster's New World Compact School and Office Dictionary, the definition of "lucky" is: "1. having good luck 2. resulting fortunately 3. believed to bring good luck." Before I read your autobiography, Small Steps, this definition would have sent pictures of trophies, money, and gold swirling through my mind. But now things are different.

I used to be like you were before you got polio, worrying about small things like the homecoming float, how I looked, and what people thought of me. I never stopped and took time to thank God for gifts like breathing, swallowing, or even being on Earth. I never would've thought of simply being able to move my hand as Christmas, my birthday, and the Fourth of July all in one! Every night for almost a year, I have prayed that God not let me take things for granted, but I never really meant it until your book came into my life.

Now I also realize that there is always someone worse off than me, no matter how bad I think my situation is. Even while you were lying on your bed in University Hospital unable to move, Tommy was lying next to you in his iron lung. Now whenever my mom makes something I don't like for dinner or I can't go to my friend's birthday party, I simply think of someone who is worse off than me, like people who are starving or a child who has no friends.

Now when I read the definition of "lucky," I think of being able to swallow, walk, breathe, and live. Now I am a different person, a changed human being, and I will never go back to my old ways. I will never think that I'm unlucky again.