Marly Cornell: Inspired by Inspiring People

by Marly Cornell

Editor's note: In the July 2015 issue of Books Make a Difference, we shared the story behind Seeds for Change: The Lives and Work of Suri and Edda Sehgal by Marly Cornell. Since then, Marly has traveled around the US and India. In September 2016, she spoke at the American Center Library, within the US Embassy in New Delhi, India. She previously presented at the library in August 2015 to talk about Seeds for Change. In March 2016, while visiting Sehgal Foundation, she spoke about Together We Empower: Rekindling Hope in Rural India, which highlights the foundation’s work in water management, agricultural development, and promoting good rural governance to help the rural poor in India lead more secure, prosperous, and dignified lives. Her audience was so inspired, they asked her to present a third time, this time about the inspiring book she wrote about her own daughter's life, The Able Life of Cody Jane: Still Celebrating.

In this month’s subscriber exclusive, we asked Marly to share how being a writer and editor of books like these has made a difference in her life.

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After editing more than two hundred books, ghostwriting a few books for others, and writing some of my own books, I recently reflected on the many published manuscripts I have played some part in creating—and I discovered a pattern. The ones that made the difference to me, those I cared about the most and felt the greatest energy while working on, were books about inspiring people.

I was recently invited to give a talk at the American Center Library at the US Embassy in New Delhi about the book I wrote about the life of my daughter Cody that was published in 2011 with the help of the Spina Bifida Association of America. Cody was born in 1972 with a severe form of spina bifida, a congenital birth defect that left her paralyzed from the waist down and with a shunt in her brain to drain excess spinal fluid. Before her untimely death at age thirty-two, Cody endured dozens of hospitalizations and serious surgeries, used a wheelchair to get around, and faced many difficult barriers. However, I can assure you that disability did not define Cody. She led a fairly independent life, with varying levels of support along the way—a full and joyful life—an able life that included lots of love, school, college, work (paid and volunteer), her own apartment by age twenty-one, travel, music, art, romance, a life partner, lots of laughing and fun, and many celebrations.

As I told the audience in India, The Able Life of Cody Jane: Still Celebrating was intended to be the kind of book my daughter would have wanted to read—a book that said something useful about how people aspiring for independence dealt with real-life challenges that were sometimes difficult and oftentimes funny. Cody did not see her life as one of suffering, and it would be disrespectful of me to reflect back upon it that way. I admired her faith, her fighting spirit, her pure heart, and her droll sense of humor in any circumstance.

Everything I learned about living an able life, I learned from my daughter Cody. I also learned how the hardest assignments in life can lead to the greatest joy. My kid had no tolerance for anyone’s feeling sorry for her. She wanted others to understand how her struggles in life may look horrible to so-called “normal” people, but she said, “We are just living.”

Cody was a fierce advocate for the underdogs in the world. She used her voice and her actions to defend vulnerable others. She cared about social justice and fairness and did what she could to protect herself and others from exploitation. She campaigned for animal rights, confronted bullies and discrimination, and defended her friends who were also disenfranchised in some way—racially, ethnically, or due to a mental illness or disability.

The talks I was invited to give after writing about Cody brought me into an association with many hundreds of people similar to Cody who are enduring tough circumstances while striving with great spirit and energy for lives of dignity and independence—as well as a multitude of parents, caregivers, educators, and healthcare professionals who advocate for them.

My book about Cody played a role in my being chosen to write about two of the most inspiring people I’ve ever known and been honored to befriend. Writing Seeds for Change: The Lives and Work of Suri and Edda Sehgal (published in 2014 by Sehgal Foundation), lifted me into another orbit of tremendously inspiring individuals.

Suri and Edda Sehgal were each refugees who escaped dangerous and difficult circumstances as children, led remarkable lives, and when they achieved great wealth, used their time, their skills, and bulk of their wealth to make a positive difference in rural India with the creation of Sehgal Foundation. They chose to work in partnership with communities in the most marginalized and poverty-stricken regions to empower villagers to bring about rural development.

The history of the foundation’s work since 1999 was the next book I wrote, Together We Empower: Rekindling Hope in Rural India, published by Sehgal Foundation in 2016. The philanthropic legacy that Suri and Edda Sehgal launched into motion has attracted many more inspiring people who have come together to make a positive difference in the lives of the poor. From huge companies like Coca-Cola, academic and government bodies, to individual contributors like me, partners around the world are working with Sehgal Foundation’s heroic team to create water security, food security, environmental sustainability, and social justice in hundreds of villages in rural India.

Last March Suri and Edda Sehgal invited my husband Ernie and me to go to Gurgaon, India, to meet many of the heroes I’d been interviewing and writing about for the previous couple of years. I felt so touched by the profound humility and dedication of the people we met. I thought how unlikely it would have been that Cody could have been there with me (in light of her many medical issues) to see the amazing work being done to empower people with hope and share the tools for their development. Cody would have loved to meet those people. She would have wanted to join the team on the spot and done what she could to help encourage, support, and advocate for impoverished villagers.

The potent key to the social justice work being done by the Sehgal Foundation team is their service as advocates and catalysts who support and encourage others. They are working alongside villagers—not solving their problems, but helping poor and vulnerable people solve their own problems-—and in doing so, empowering them to take part in their own advocacy and development. Each newly empowered individual is a reason for celebration. Sehgal Foundation CEO Ajay Pandey has said, “Any society that leaves even a single individual unable to lead a life worth celebrating is not an able society.”

My daughter Cody, Suri and Edda Sehgal, and the entire team at Sehgal Foundation in the US and in India as well as their partners around the world are people who have understood how much every person in every circumstance wants to lead a full life of dignity and independence. All of them are inspiring people who have taken part in creating a more able society.

My life assignment has changed permanently. There is no turning back now. I will continue to use my writing to spread the word and celebrate inspiring people.

Marly Cornell
Web: www.MarlyCornell.com

Sehgal Foundation
Web : www.SMSFoundation.org
Facebook: /SMSFPage
Twitter: @sehgalfdn

American Center Library, US Embassy, New Delhi
Web: www.NewDelhi.USEmbassy.gov/americanlibrary.html
Facebook: /AmericanCenterNewDelhi

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Marly Cornell is a writer, artist, and social justice advocate. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband Ernie Feil and dogs Reuben and Zoey. The Able Life of Cody Jane: Still Celebrating won a Midwest Book Award. Seeds for Change: The Lives and Work of Suri and Edda Sehgal and Together We Empower: Rekindling Hope in Rural India both won International Book Awards (IBA).