garden of memories for my family to bloom in their futures she wrote lou gehrig was an athlete als took his talent immediately but i was a writer als could curl my fingers and weaken my body but it could not take my talent i tucked my head once again in the starting block steeling myself for the race she wrote and race she did her adventures around the globe took her to the yukon with her lifelong best friend nancy to california to meet her birth mother to hungary with her husband on a cruise with her sister stephanie to cyprus to meet her deceased biological fathers family and to new york to try on wedding dresses with her 14yearold daughter among other trips although mostly paralyzed als patient takes up flower arranging each trip weakened her physically doing irreparable damage on her body but seemed to simultaneously do immeasurable good for her soul when people urged her to stop the trips she gave the same response each time not a chance spencerwendel tells the stories of her travels with a compelling mixture of humor sadness frustration fear gratitude and mostly joy in one chapter spencerwendel turned her reporters prowess to the gargantuan task of making a scrapbook for each of her children marina 15 aubrey 11 and wesley 9 after i got sick id lie awake at night thinking holy crap no one but me can find the photos much less organize and label them no one can make photo albums for the childrenexcept me she wrote do it now right now susan while you still can i put photo albums on the bucket list after my diagnosis along with the trips a journey not out into the world but back through my own life by this time her hands and arms were so weak that she could not hold a pile of photos or move a box she spent months with friends and family helping her meticulously organize photos for each childs book after christmas i realized that at the rate i was moving i might be dead before i was done spencerwendel wrote she ramped up the pace and didnt let helpers linger on photos or ask too many questions the photos were eventually handed over to a professional scrapbook maker who delivered the completed products to spencerwendel i shall relive my childrens childhoods as i hope they will one day i hope they will see in front of them what beautiful people they are she wrote and how much their mother loved them in january spencerwendel posted her response to the question how are you on her blog as well as can be expected my body and voice become weaker every single day but my mind becomes mightier and more quiet you do indeed hear more in silence she wrote i can no longer walk more than a step or two to the bathroom my limbs look like swizzle sticks with pearl onions stuck on