Columns

“There’s nothing but twigs and seeds, twigs and seeds, And they sure don’t deliver the punch that this ole head needs.” Jesse Winchester is lamenting his discovery that all that remains in his “medicinal” stash are the…

One of my personal traditions at the end of the year is a quick flip through my desk calendar to review the events and milestones that took place. Only this year, the world crisis overshadowed just about everything. “What’s to review?” I thought. But as I pondered the question a…

This Christmas season, we reflect on Jesus’ entering into this beautiful, yet broken world. God incarnate entered into human life where he would know both love and betrayal. Fellowship and forsakenness. Hospitality and hostility. He experienced the joy of eating and drinking with close friends. He celebrated at a wedding…

Every week, I receive an email from a friend that’s filled with cartoons, jokes, and quirky one-liners. And this time around, one quip struck me as feeling eerily true: “It feels weird being the same age as old people.” Why? Well, like most folks who share my age (I’m 69),…

It’s time again to send our annual Christmas letter and picture card to our friends and family. Since my daughter could talk, I’ve kept a list of cute things the kids say throughout each year. I pick the best to include in our letter. When Sara was 2, we…

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts …” – William Shakespeare Some months back, I…

One of the first symptoms of ALS I experienced was a sudden weakness in my legs and feet. This meant that without warning, whenever I walked I felt as if I had stepped in a hole, and more than once I ended up taking a nasty fall. Even when I…

On Saturday morning, I lay cuddled next to my husband, Todd, in bed. I could feel his thigh muscles pulse against my leg, misfire after misfire. I wished I could will the fasciculations to stop. When I washed him and changed his shorts, I was struck by how thin his…

“Well I don’t know how to tell the weight of the sun, … How the home computer has me on the run, … Of all the Nobel prizes that I’ve never won, …  Please be upstanding for the Mayor of…

During these final weeks of 2020, I’ve been reflecting on the various ways this world health crisis has affected the ALS community. One evolving activity that has held my interest ever since I included it in my post-pandemic predictions in a column last April is online ALS support groups.