When I think about resilience, love, and the meaning of family, my grandparents’ story comes to life before me. They left behind the familiarity of northern Italy for the unknown streets of Canada, carrying little more than courage, hope, and each other. Through failed business ventures and moments of deep hardship, they never lost faith—building a successful life not only through hard work, but through laughter and love.

Even when money was scarce, they made time for joy: dancing in the living room, trading jokes from their old joke book, and showing me that happiness is something you create, not something you find…

After being diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma last year I was frightened and anxious. Then I began each morning with a moment of meditating on what I was grateful for. There was so much. My supportive husband and family, the medical staff who take care of me, the research teams that developed the immunologic therapy that is preventing reoccurrence, my friends. I am also so blessed to live in a beautiful healing place by a lake. I am thankful that I was well enough to travel to Portugal with my husband, brother and his wife and meet many wonderful people along our journey, including Seamus.
Begin and end your day with a few moments of gratitude and it will heal you. It calms me and puts life into perspective. Love, joy and peace to all.

I started this Gratitude Movement because I truly believe that when we focus on all that we have—rather than what we lack—we live a happier life and become more willing to recognize and appreciate the efforts of others.
When I resigned from teaching last year, I knew in my heart that I had given everything I had to my students. I had tried my best to be a positive impact in their lives. But what I didn’t expect was the overwhelming outpouring of gratitude I received from my former students. Their words, their stories, their appreciation left me absolutely floored. It became clear to me that I had made a difference in the lives of so many, and I thought to myself: Why should it take a life-altering decision for that gratitude to be shared?
That question led me to create this movement—with the hope of sharing one million stories of gratitude and, in doing so, making the world a better place. That was my vision.
Recently, my beautiful dog Hennessy passed away, and my heart is broken. It happened so suddenly—he wasn’t sick. We started the day as we always did, with a beautiful morning walk, and the next day, he was gone. He was my best friend, my roommate, my travel buddy—my life revolved around him. It’s hard to be grateful when your house is empty, when there’s no one waiting for you at the door after a long day.

I was on a road-trip with one of my musical mentors, when he mentioned his oldest son being his best friend. It occurred me that my parents, as well, are my best friends – we are completely absorbed and connected by music even beyond family. And basically, all sports. They gifted and fostered my interest in music, and hockey when I was younger.

I am grateful for this connection for sure, but when I think of gratitude, I am further grateful for the fact that they are well taken care of and not in any state of financial or health stress. They achieved this for themselves. My parents are free to just enjoy their grandchildren and listen to my tales of musical travels.

And when I return from such gigs, we laugh and joke and tell old stories like friends do.

My mother was the most wonderful woman in the world. She was extremely wise for a woman with limited schooling who lived out in the country. She encouraged me to study and work hard in school, as she knew it would benefit me later in life. I don’t know how she found the money to enroll me in the convent school, but she did, ensuring I would have a better education than the commercial school. The St. Louis nuns were very strict but incredibly knowledgeable teachers. They taught me the in-depth particulars of various subjects like History, English, Religion, and Domestic Economy—things I wouldn’t have learned at the regular school.
Upon graduating, I had a job waiting for me in Dublin with the Civil Service. When I dreamt about my life, I didn’t see myself working in an office, so I asked my mother if I could travel to England and train to be a nurse. I’ll never forget what she said: “If that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you.” Had she not supported my dreams, I would have taken the job in Dublin, and my life would have been completely different.
I often think of my poor mother dropping me off at the train station to travel to Dublin, and then by boat to England. I was only 18 years old, and my mother wouldn’t know if I had arrived safely for weeks—until a letter could be delivered and ease her concerns. I can’t imagine how much she must have worried about me, but her faith was so strong, and I know she put her trust in God…

May sounds simple to some but I am grateful for my friends and their unwavering support. They are always there to pick each other up and celebrate the wins.

I am so grateful that I have my health so that I can help others! Without health, both mental and physical, life would be difficult and therefore I am super grateful!

It was after my cancer treatment and recovery that I decided that I needed to quit my job and do something meaningful. I had a second chance on life, and didn’t see value in sitting behind a desk any longer. After a successful and random fundraising event to support the hospital that saved my life, my oncologist Dr. Neil Bernstein, encouraged me to consider this as a career. I remember him saying “you are good at this, you should do this for a living”. This conversation ignited a spark to find out more about an event planning and fundraising career, which led me back to College, and changed the trajectory of my life moving forward.

Our parents are our first teachers and as such have the potential to have the greatest impact on our lives as children and probably most importantly as adults – even well after they have physically left us. I am especially grateful for life’s lessons that I learned from my parents in shaping the person I am. These lessons were not taught through lengthy conversations over the dinner table or through bedtime stories. Living on a farm with six children didn’t afford us the luxury of spending such ‘quality’ time with our parents. However, it was the lessons of integrity, loyalty, honesty, faith, commitment, will power and most importantly unconditional love through the most adverse situations that shaped the person that I have become and continue to be…

My mother’s eyes always lit up when I walked into a room. She left a tiny village in Ireland at 18, went to England to train as a nurse and then Scotland to become a midwife. She delivered hundreds of babies in farmhouses around Glasgow with no machines or phones in sight. She never lost a mother or a baby.
She gave me more confidence than I deserved growing up. Made me believe in myself beyond reason.
She let me take piles of books out of the library as a child and always packed me a brown bag lunch. She often came home from her own nursing shift with her lunch in hand, never having a moment for a break while new moms and babies needed her…