Horrible disease

I just learned from Facebook one of my friends - not really close, a fellow member of the little failing church.

She and her fiance joined about three years ago.  They came pretty regularly.  A darling early middle aged couple I believe.  I am not sure with ages.  Then at the beginning of the year three years ago, they got married.  It was a beautiful service, but it was after they had married at a Justice of the Peace.

The wedding was for family and very close friends, but they posted pictures for all of the rest of us to see.  There were two weddings because, you see, she had been diagnosed with ALS.

It all began with her right leg being very week and not working the way it should have.  Their future wasn't as sure as it had been.  So there was the first wedding. They were making sure they would be married.

Her goal for the wedding was to not use her cane.  She did it!  She walked down the aisle in her beautiful gown - without the cane.

In the ensuing year, they traveled as much as they could.  Alaska was one of the trips they took.  They were so much in love.  They radiated love.

As time has gone on, she was not able to attend church.  The last time I saw her, she was in a wheelchair - a motorized wheelchair to enable her any mobility.  But they were still so obviously in love.  It radiated from them,  

Her strength kept diminishing.  She was totally homebound in the chair, and no ability to move much of anything.

Yesterday morning, she died in her sleep.  This terrible disease has taken another beautiful, loving, productive person.  This is the second I have known pretty well.  One a distant relative and now this one.  I know there are several diseases that appear to have no cure.  We have lost ones we love to pancreatic cancer.  These diseases seem to not have a cure.  They progress rapidly and always end the same.

So Jamie - you are finally released from a body that no longer does what it was supposed to do.  You leave so many behind who loved you.