Adding love and light to my home after experiencing ALS loss

When I was growing up, many of my neighbors participated in the U.S. Naval Academy Sponsor Program, as we lived just a few miles from the school’s campus in Annapolis, Maryland. Under the program, local families “adopted” midshipmen, offering a home away from home to the students, who could come over to watch television, do laundry, and enjoy some time away from the pressures of the respected but rigorous service academy. Often these sponsor relationships turned into lifelong friendships, with sponsor parents and kids remaining close through marriages, children, and other life changes.

When my late husband, Jeff, and I relocated back to my hometown just before his ALS diagnosis in 2018, I was eager for us to become a sponsor family. I pictured boating and barbecues, late-night conversations and rides to the airport, the typical fare of sponsorship. Jeff had studied at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Virginia, and we both supported the military. It seemed like a natural fit for us to embrace the local Navy community by adopting a few “mids,” as they’re informally called.

But ALS had other plans for us. Jeff’s symptoms, which had started the previous autumn with an annoying but nonpainful foot drop, advanced quickly the summer we moved to Annapolis. We both realized that something serious was going on, and because ALS was the probable diagnosis, I abandoned our plans to sponsor a “mid.” The next 19 months I was consumed with caregiving, embracing every possible moment of joy, and making all of the memories that we could.

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A few months after Jeff died in 2020, my lifelong friend Martha reminded me that the Naval Academy was looking for sponsor families. She’d been a sponsor mom for decades, and the way she loved her sponsor kids had always moved me. Still, I hesitated. Was it fair to bring young people into a house where I was still reeling from loss? Did I have anything to offer them? Would my obvious grief bring them down? Unsure, I submitted my application and waited.

A few weeks later, I was matched with two young women who could not have been more different from each other, or more interesting as individuals. As we got to know one another during those first few months, we settled into routines that made us a little family: ordering takeout, talking on the couch for hours, and hosting friends and fellow midshipmen. From them, I learned about new music and culture, Navy traditions, and laughing again.

The next year, I adopted a classmate and friend of theirs. When all three of them were over — often on weekends and with other midshipmen in tow — I was happily outnumbered in my own home, which once again brimmed with laughter and levity. There was cooking and boating and dinners outdoors. We developed our own traditions and favorite restaurants. We enjoyed the numerous inside jokes that come with familiarity and friendship. I got to know their parents and families.

I shared with all of them, of course, about Jeff and ALS, and about loss. How could I not? Memories of him are all over my home and my heart. Instead of feeling that I was being unfair to them, I realized that what Jeff and I had experienced with ALS made me a more compassionate friend and an empathetic listener. What I’d been through as a caregiver had made me more attuned to others’ feelings and needs. In turn, I learned that they, too, had important things on their minds, and I hope that my own openness and vulnerability helped them see that I could be trusted to listen.

They graduated last year and were commissioned as Navy officers. I was honored that they chose to live here with me last summer while awaiting their service assignments. Two of them are in other states now completing additional training. The other is still nearby, but leaves this week for flight training. We’re having one last dinner together before he ships out.

When, as always, they thank me for hosting them, I say, “No, thank you.” Through these friendships, I learned a few things. Taking a leap into the unknown and out of my comfort zone in those early days of loss brought richness and love into my life. Opening my home to strangers helped me build a new family that I hope to know forever. And it’s never wrong to seek — and offer — connection in the most transitional times of our lives.

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