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I Want to Age Like Sea Glass – Loretta Morris Memorial Fund

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In May I celebrated my 73rdbirthday with a round of golf at Sandpiper Golf Course in Santa Barbara, CA and then dinner at the Boat House restaurant on Hendry’s Beach. A great start to another year for someone ageing with CF. Yes; I am a CF Warrior who wasn’t diagnosed with CF until I was 64 years old. In spite of years of lung problems I had a successful career and live an active lifestyle. I had a rough month in June ended up needing oxygen to get up the stairs in my house, then in the hospital and on IV antibiotics for two weeks. I am fortunate to live on the Pacific Coast in Ventura, CA and I could still take beach walks even with PICC line in.  I am getting my strength back and enjoying my favorite activities: swimming laps, golfing and yoga. I am healthier now in my seventies than I was in my sixties. I was inspired by a poem by Bernadette Noll. 

As a CF Warrior I want to age like sea glass, “smoothed by tides, not broken.”

“When I am thrown against the shore and caught between the rocks and a hard place, I want to rest there until I can find the strength to do what is next. Not stuck — just waiting, pondering, feeling what it feels like to pause.  And when I am ready, I will catch a wave and let it carry me along to the next place that I am supposed to be. 

“I want to age like sea glass.  I want to enjoy the journey and let my preciousness be, not in spite of the impacts of life, but because of them.”

 I lost my sister Loretta to CF in 1971 when she was just 21 years old. She died just a few months after we had made a trip from San Francisco, CA to British Columbia, Canada. In 2010, I established in her memory, the Loretta Morris Memorial Fund with the Cystic Fibrosis Lifestyle Foundation (CFLF). The CFLF mission fits well with my own interests and I could help others living with CF through Recreation Grants for the exercise-based activity that my sister and I enjoyed: dance, horseback riding, swimming, yoga, and golf. I currently serve on the CFLF Board of Directors. 

Loretta Morris-1971 Crater Lake, Oregon

The Fund is supported by 60 friends and family members and has awarded 170 grants since 2010. The total funds disbursed for the grants equal $71,800. A few grant recipients are featured here.

De Anna – Age 54 – Vermont – Horseback Riding“I have never been so healthy and felt so good mentally. My riding lessons have given me new friends and a social outlet I never had before.”

Mary – Age 7 – California – Swimming    “I will take swimming lessons and learn how to take deep breaths and hope that will make my lungs stronger and I will be healthier.” 
Hailey – Age 17 – Arizona – Dance
“Dance gives me something to do that helps me keep moving. Exercise is a very important thing to do when you have CF. Dance is so much fun I don’t think of it as exercise but as an enjoyable activity.”

Additional information about CFLF and the Loretta Morris Memorial Fund is available at www.CFLF.org

By: Barbara M. Harison