Juliet lost her husband, Jeff, to ALS in 2020, 19 months after his diagnosis. Together Jeff and Juliet enjoyed being on the water, live music, pets, and traveling. She was his primary caregiver, and finds meaning and healing in helping individuals and families who are living with or have lost a loved one to ALS. Juliet lives with her rescue pup, Sailor, on the eastern shore of Maryland, in a home that Jeff chose because it reminded him of his beloved Green Lake in Michigan.
When I reflect on my time as a caregiver to my late husband, Jeff, while we lived with his ALS, I remember how afraid I often felt. I was fearful of injuring him during a transfer. I dreaded…
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Like many in the ALS community, I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Bryan Randall, a photographer and the partner of actor Sandra Bullock. I respected that his loved ones honored his request…
My brothers-in-law made me an incredibly kind offer while I was caregiving for my late husband, Jeff, as he was living with ALS. They offered to spend a long weekend in January caring for him at our…
Throughout our relationship, my late husband, Jeff, was the partner who most enjoyed taking care of people and things. He built wooden furniture and personal gifts, tended to flowers, and prepared meals from scratch. He got a great deal…
Green Lake, in northern Michigan, is verdant and peaceful. Evergreen and aspen trees grow right to the water’s edge, and the shores are dotted with summer cottages and a smattering of small docks and boat houses. If I…
The first text message my late husband, Jeff, ever sent me was just one word. We’d had our first date the previous evening, and our dinner at a sidewalk restaurant on a mild autumn evening in Alexandria, Virginia, was…
I love inspirational quotes and sayings. Throughout my life, I’ve stumbled upon passages from books or snippets of speeches from public figures and recognized them as a helpful way for me to understand or think about a current challenge…
May has always been my favorite month of the year. Here in Maryland, the trees have filled in with lush green leaves, commercial crabbing boats have begun to quietly travel my small creek in the early dawn hours, and…
Making and keeping friends did not come naturally to me in childhood. I was shy, and my introversion and love of books often kept me curled up on the couch reading while other neighborhood kids biked and…
When my late husband, Jeff, and I were living with his ALS, we were both drawn to spending time outside. While this wasn’t all that different from our life before ALS, somehow, when faced with his…
On a bitterly cold morning in New York last weekend, I woke before the sun and walked through the empty city streets to the Times Square subway station. From there, I caught a train to Brooklyn, the starting line…
On a snowy morning three years ago, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, my late husband, Jeff, sped the entire length of the University of Michigan football field in his blue power wheelchair. Light snow was falling as…
Today I had a mammogram. We have a family history of certain cancers, so I’m careful to get recommended screenings. After losing my husband, Jeff, to ALS, I feel a bittersweet commitment to taking care of myself…
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