Until I Say Good-bye by Susan Spencer-Wendel 616.83 Spe

Susan had a wonderful life.  She was a successful journalist at the age of 44.  She also had a loving husband and three kids.  Life was busy and fulfilling. But then she sought medical help when she began to have some weird symptoms.  When you go to the doctor you might expect a few tests and then some medicine or maybe surgery.  You don’t expect to be told that you have a deadly disease (ALS - also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and probably a year left to live.  I think many of us would spend 11 months trying to come to terms with the news.  But Susan was different.  She wanted to make it a year of joy.

After quitting her job she made plans.  During that year she planned seven trips with seven people that meant the world to her. Now we aren’t talking an hour trip to sit in a cabin and look at mountains!  With her health declining she went all over the world. One of the touching things was to take her daughter to a famous bridal store in New York City so that she could see what her daughter (who was just a teen at the time) would look like in a wedding dress.  Susan wrote this book using one thumb - yes one thumb because that is the only finger that was still working - on her IPhone.  This woman was amazing.

A woman like that would not write a “poor little me” book.  It is truly an uplifting book about joy - not about a year of slowly dying.

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