My first introduction with Lou Gehrig's disease was when I took up my Master's Degree in Educational Psychology in the university. One of the books that my late Professor assigned in our reading requirements was "Tuesdays with Morrie." The book is about Morrie, a university professor who after being diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS- or the more popular name Lou Gehrig's Disease), started writing down his thoughts and philosophies about love, relationships, living and even dying. He was featured in a TV show Dateline, one of his former students, Mitch coincidentally happened to watch the show.
Mitch looked up to his professor as his mentor during his university days. He reconnected with Morrie and took time off from his busy work for them to meet up together on Tuesdays, thus the book called Tuesdays with Morrie. Together they discussed Morrie’s written philosophies- about love, relationships, life and death.
It has been two decades since I first read the book; I didn’t end up finishing my masters as I shifted my career to nursing which I can say, is as fulfilling as teaching is. I never really met someone with ALS until early this year while working as a visiting nurse. For the purpose of confidentiality, I will call this patient with the initials MC. MC has been diagnosed with ALS, and because there are no detailed history of her physical records on her electronic chart, I don’t exactly know the extent she has been ill. Although it is evident that she has been suffering from it for a while. In fact, she already lost the ability to swallow when I first met her and I know from what I read about the disease, that MC doesn’t have so much time to live.
MC became my regular assignment in almost of my daily routine. When I visit her in the evenings to administer her food through tube feed, I always find her sitting by the window in her dining room. As I take care of MC, I thought about the book- and somehow, directly or indirectly, I found myself starting to replicate how Morrie and Mitch's relationship. MC and I started sharing and talking about life's lessons, stories about each other's experiences, feelings, and life in general. I learned a lot from her as he lead an adventurous life as unmarried woman, and how most of her life was spent with her sister until her close sibling passed away. She had surfed the oceans of Hawaii and California, did SCUBA and sky diving, traveled a lot of places and noted that England was her favorite place to visit. MC eventually settled here at the Cape, less than a mile from Gray's Beach, where she's a native of. “You always go back home,” she told me with a smile.
Our bond became deeper as the days went by. In each of my visits, our conversations have gradually moved from being casual to meaningful ones. One day, when we were engaged in a no-holds-barred discussion, I asked her how she deals with the fact that tomorrow may not come for her. MC just looked at me quietly- and just when I thought I had offended her, she responded, “Jun… life is just like the sunrise and the sunsets; it's different everyday, but it comes in the morning… then by the end of the day, it goes away, and comes back again. That's how I see my self with this condition.”
MC continued on to liken her life to those natural events. She further explained the main reason why she enjoyed watching sunrise and sunsets by the beach when she was still able to. Now that she is home bound, she spends her time by her window where she could still enjoy watching both sunrise and sunsets. I remained speechless; I was admiring her in complete silence. Although MC's level of disposition and personal outlook in life is not new to me, it makes more sense now that I hear it from someone I personally know who battles to stay alive everyday. And just like the book I was introduced to from twenty years ago, MC is another person that for sure makes an impact in how I view life.
As I write this blog, I am no longer the nurse that takes care of MC as she is no longer with the VNA service. I hope and pray the best for her. I tried to think as to when I started taking photos of both sunrise and sunsets; and in my recollection, I started taking them as early as January but it wasn’t as enjoyable and significant as it is now that I have a different perspective on why I am taking them. The lessons I learned from the book from 20 years ago and my brief daily encounter with MC became the catalysts for me to appreciate more about my existence and how I should make it more meaningful. Life is beautiful.
Please visit https://www.junbaniquedimages.com/collections-of-sunrise-and-sunsets/ to see some of my favorite sunrise and sunsets taken during this year's summer in the best places here at the Cape. Few of them were taken at Gray's Beach, which is a favorite place of MC, which she told me to pay a visit sometime back in spring.
