The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: WHAT would you do if you had only one year left to live? It's a frightening question. But it was a question that journalist Susan Spencer-Wendel was forced to ask herself when she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) at 44 years old. Spencer-Wendel was told her health would slowly deteriorate, leading to her inevitable death. Lou Gehrig's disease is irreversible, systematically destroying the nerves powering your muscles, resulting in every movement being difficult and painful. It would have been understandable to despair. But Spencer-Wendel refused to give up. Quitting her job, the courageous woman decided to spend that last year the way she chose: spending time with her loved ones, discovering her roots, and seeing the world. Until I Say Goodbye is the bittersweet story of Spencer-Wendel's last year of good health. Profound, moving and inspiring, the book is a poignant reminder of life's ephemerality, and of never taking anything for granted. Spencer-Wendel worked as a court reporter for twenty years before her illness. She wrote her book on an iPhone – unable to walk or even lift her arms due to the disease, she tapped out her story letter by letter with her right thumb, the last finger she had working. Until I Say Goodbye is the fulfillment of her final wish: "To make people laugh and cry and hug their children and joke with their friends and dwell in how wonderful it is to be alive." Spencer-Wendel describes how she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life, journeying to Hungary, Cyprus, and the Bahamas, among other places. While her travel accounts are delightful, the narrative is most magical when the author expresses her feelings about her companions. "That's our thing. I realize now," she writes about a cruise she takes with her sister. "Something special between the two of us. The thing fully realized on that trip. Not travelling. Not adventure. But being there for one another, so that we may unburden our hearts. Uncrowd our minds. And hear what our souls are saying." Family is clearly important to the author; much of her last year is spent bonding with her husband, John, and three children. An adopted child, Spencer-Wendel also manages to track down her family, resulting in several whimsical chapters of reunions and reminiscing in her birth country of Cyprus. Indeed, certain parts of this story are rather rib-tickling. What is amazing is how well Spencer-Wendel blends honesty and humour, speaking frankly about the pains of her condition, while consistently remaining upbeat. The most poignant part of the story, however, is undoubtedly when Spencer-Wendel takes her 14-year-old daughter Marina to Kleinfeld's bridal shop in New York, so the author can see her in a wedding dress. "I simply wanted to make a memory," she writes. "I wanted to see my beautiful daughter on her wedding day. I wanted to glimpse the woman she would be. Maybe I would cry. Mothers cry, right? But I knew I would laugh, too. Because I would be with my Marina. I would be imagining her happy." Until I Say Goodbye is not a fairytale adventure; there are parts of the story where Spencer-Wendel's plans go awry, once even failing completely. What is inspiring, however, is that at no point is the author bitter about any of these snags, always choosing to look on the bright side of things. And perhaps that is the main theme of the book. Nothing goes according to plan. Life is an ocean with an ever-changing tide, and no matter how much we struggle, it often overwhelms us, carrying us to strange shores we do not expect. The trick however, is in enjoying the dip. |
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