Until I Say Goodbye: My Year of Living with Joy

What would you do with your life if you knew your time was limited?  Susan Spencer-Wendel, a journalist from West Palm Beach, Florida actually was faced with this difficult scenario.  It all started when her left hand started to wither and she was unable to use it normally.  She was in her forties.  After numerous doctor visits and testing, it was decided.  ALS.  A degenerative neurological disease.  There is no cure.

So what did Susan decide to do?  She decided to make the most of her time on Earth.  Happily married with three children, she chose to focus on the bright spots in her life and making memories with her children.  Gone were the days of nitpicking over the tidiness of her kitchen or the cleanliness of her children's rooms.  Instead, she planned special trips with all of the most important people in her life: her husband, John, her three children, Marina, Wesley, and Aubrey, her best friend, her sister.  She took her 14-year old daughter wedding dress shopping in NYC.  She took her son Aubrey to the beach where he went parasailing for the first time.  She went to see the Northern lights with her friend Nancy.  And she lived. 

Though this book was incredibly heart wrenching, the message of living (and living with joy) was rewarding to see.  I connected so much to Susan, not as someone with a terminal illness, but as a mother and a wife and someone who very much wants to see her children grow.  I would recommend this book to most mothers, although I would make sure they knew it was a tearjerker. 

Very near the end of the book, which is really a gift to her children, Susan says, "Look for me in your heart, my children.  Sense me there, and smile...All their lives, I have marveled in front of my children at sunsets. 'Isn't it gorgeous?' I've gushed.  Now they do the same."  Clearly her message isn't about dying, but about living.  And appreciating the moments we do have.

Here is a video of her friend Nancy discussing the story: