some traits of life:

sentience - all life has felt pain and also may feel emotions, pleasures, joys

communicability / cognition / intelligence / sapience - humanity and animals, mayhaps flora and funga, are able to, somehow, communicate, think (rudimentarily, sophisticatedly, differently), be aware, focus, and understand life (as may vary o'er time and perhaps greatly amongst us all)

reproduction - sex may cause birth of progeny; asexual reproduction also has occurred (aspen colonies)