Surviving your life - making your way through the good and bad - nudges you to make a record of it, to leave signposts for those who come after, especially your children.

That was Sharon Emery's plan in writing It's Hard Being You, A Primer on Being Happy Anyway.She had survived perhaps the most heartrending loss of all, the death of a child. But she also faced the less wrenching challenge of having a disability that was incurable, though not deadly (stuttering). Life is hard, but, so what?

This memoir became Emery's so what. She has recounted her challenges and achievements and given them meaning, and found where they fit in her life. It's a process she considers vital to surviving what happens to you - telling the story.

As the title suggests, Emery writes with both hard-eyed realism and compassionate humor. Readers can listen in on what Emery wants her children to know about the losses and the limits that keep happening despite our desperate attempts to avoid them.

Her memoir resides in the everyday struggle to live as best we can, providing insights on how all who struggle - which is to say all of us - can survive well.