Press

I’m one of the lucky ones to be born without a nonsense CF (CF) gene mutation. In fact, I was lucky to be born without a CF gene mutation at all. Until a few years ago, I had never heard of CF, let alone met a patient. CF had no meaning to me then. That is, until I met and quickly fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Mallory Smith who had both: one common CF gene mutation, and one nonsense one. At that point, CF gene mutations took on a whole new meaning, since loving Mallory made me feel like the luckiest man alive—but having a girlfriend with deadly mutations threatened our future.

In honor of Mother’s Day, the San Diego Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation held its annual “65 Roses Ladies Luncheon” on Thursday, May 9, 2019.

The title “65 Roses” is in honor of a little boy, who years ago, thought that’s how his disease was pronounced.

You might think that a book written by a young woman with cystic fibrosis who died at age 25 would be sad. In the case of the late Mallory Smith’s “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life” (Random House, 2019, $26), you’d be wrong.

If, like me, you have an app on your cell phone in which you list the titles of books you want to read, open it up! I think you’re going to want to add one or more of this month’s Literary Mama staff reading recommendations to it.

Salt in My Soul is a powerful, heartbreaking and inspiring look at Mallory Smith’s life.

Mallory Smith’s memoir “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life” may prove the most difficult book you’ll ever read.

Because you know the ending.

“She wanted to work in environmental education but the field work she would be doing was too risky for her health, her doctors told her not to” said Diane Shader Smith, mother of Mallory Smith, during an emotional and groundbreaking talk in the LSB Auditorium on April 8, 2019.