“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Those in the know in the world of ALS (not a club you want to be part of) are familiar with the acronyms PALS and CALS. These monikers work because writing out the entire titles: person with ALS and caregiver of a person with ALS gets pretty laborious.

In short: There’s a person (the PALS) experiencing the sometimes-slow and sometimes-not-so-slow loss of all muscle function coupled with, in certain cases, cognitive and behavioral impairment; that person hopefully has a person (the CALS) to care for him as he becomes increasingly anxious and withdrawn and eventually loses the ability to walk, dress, write, speak, swallow, and breathe.

It’s a strange transition in the relational dynamic, as one half of a marriage becomes a PALS and one becomes a CALS, as roles reverse and the strongest person in the house no longer is, as two become one again in a very different way.

Some days are kind and gentle and it’s easy to push ALS to the back of our minds. Others days are brutally honest and in-your-face about it, and there isn’t always a tangible reason for the difference. Today is an in-your-face kind of day, and this is not the post I had intended, but in the midst of myriad interruptions and chores, this is what landed.

I pray you all have someone with you, when you fall, to lift you up again.