Until I Say Good-bye: My Year of Living with Joy
Susan Spencer-Wendel, 2013
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062241450
Summary
In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—Lou Gehrig's disease—an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining.
Susan decided to live that year with joy.
She quit her job as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld's bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress.
She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working.
However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts—how could it not be?—but it is filled with Susan's optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile.
From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, <em >Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel's unforgettable gift to her loved ones—a heartfelt record of their final experiences together—but an offering to all of us: a reminder that "every day is better when it is lived with joy." (From the publisher.)
Watch the video.
Author Bio
• Birth—December, 1966
• Raised—West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
• Education—B.B., University of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill; M.A., University of Florida
• Currently—lives in West Palm Beach, Florida
Susan Spencer-Wendel was an award-winning journalist at the Palm Beach Post for almost twenty years. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida. She has been honored for her work by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Florida Society of News Editors, and she received a lifetime achievement award for her court reporting from the Florida Bar. She lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, with her family.
Bret Witter has collaborated on five New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Decatur, Georgia. (Author bios from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Journalist Spencer-Wendel....writes with courage and strength. When she gets the news, the 40-something author is in her prime, blessed with a great reporter job at the Palm Beach Post and loving family. Using benefits from an insurance policy, she quits her job and decides to take trips with her family and friends, so that she can have all of the amazing experiences she's put off and create lasting memories.... There are certainly moments of heartbreak that she doesn't shy away from....but in writing her story, she shows her family and friends how to go on, choosing happiness and love over fear.
Publishers Weekly
Diagnosed at age 45 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Spencer-Wendel plunged into a live-each-day-fully whirlwind that has already made news (she was spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal, and the film rights to her story have been acquired for $2.5 million). Here she recounts trips to the Yukon to see the Northern Lights, for instance, and to Northern California to meet her birth mother. Most telling, she shops in New York with her 14-year-old daughter for the wedding dress she won't live to see her daughter wear.
Library Journal
Spencer-Wendel chronicles her life and the decisions she has made since being diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).... In her mid-40s and a happily married mother of three with a thriving career, the author rejected the option of assisted suicide in favor of making her last years memorable despite the inevitability of increasing disability. Although not believing that her death would ruin the lives of her husband and children, she understood that it might "affect their ability to live with delight. To live with joy." Spencer-Wendel was determined to overcome her dread of losing mobility and to live her life to the fullest even as the disease progressed. As inspiration, the author found solace in Lou Gehrig's 1939 farewell speech, in which he described himself as "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth, even after 'catching a bad break.' " ... A poignant, wise love story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider thest talking points to help get a discussion started for Until I Say Good-bye:
1. What do you find most admirable about Susan when she learns of her illness? What enables her to approach her illness and coming death with such courage? Where does that kind of strength come from?
2. How might you respond to receiving such a diagnsis? What would be hardest for you? Would you forgo treatments to extend your life as she did? Would you ever choose assisted suicide...or reject it as Susan did?
3. If you had a year to live, how would you choose to live it? What would you do...where would you go?
4. Do you feel inspired by this book...and by Susan Spencer-Wendel?
5. Although Susan, her husband, and many reviewers insist that this book is not sad, there are certainly sad moments. What were some of the saddest occasions in the book for you. The memoir also contains humor—talk about the parts you found funny. Overall, how do you characterize this book—funny, sad, uplifting, depressing?
6. In an Amazon.com interview with Cokie Roberts, Susan says:
Desire is the root of all suffering, I believe. To want something you can't have. The cure is to not want it. I practice not wanting a cure, preparing to die. Choosing the path of least resistance. Going gracefully into the night.
Talk about that statement. Is desire "the root to all suffering"? A number of religious practices adhere to thata philosophy. Do you? What does that mean not to desire? Wouldn't life be flat and uninteresting without desire? Or would not-desiring lead to a better life?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)