How Sage Got Her Name

As a nine-year-old I read the story of a little girl named Sage Volkman. At age five, Sage was in a terrible fire that changed her life:

"When Sage was first wheeled into the burn unit, the medical staff had little hope that she would make it through the night. 'They gave her a 10-percent chance of living,' Michael [her father] remembers. She had third- and fourth-degree burns on her face, arms, chest, and legs. Her nose and one ear had been melted off. Her fingers were so charred that they would have to be amputated. She lost 35 percent of her eyelids. One lung had collapsed, and another was barely functioning; a quart of soot would be extracted from them."

Sage writes, "I am happy and people wonder how I can be with all that I have gone through. I tell them you have two ways to see the world, as a good place with wonderful people to love and be loved by or you can see everything as a problem and feel anger always in your heart. I choose to be happy."

Today Sage is a graduate student at the University of Utah. You can read her whole inspiring story here.

P.S. This is a recent photo of Sage (she loves pedicures)