It took me nearly three weeks to write this. I had lost the use of my hands. Voice to text on a vent was still new and hard and humbling. But I needed to say these things — about love, about Grace, about what ALS has cracked open in me that I didn’t know was there. Seven months later, everything I wrote here is still true. More true, maybe. I’m sharing it now because I believe it might mean something to someone else who is in the middle of something hard and wondering what love looks like from the inside of it.
Originally written on September 28, 2025 — Chicago, Illinois
(It has taken me nearly three weeks to write these words. I’ve lost the use of my hands and fingers. Voice to text while breathing through a machine is still new and hard. But these words matter, so I push forward.)
Our love story continues to grow. At the very beginning of this journey, a dear friend told me that ALS has the power to draw people closer together. That has proven to be true in ways I never could have imagined.
In truth, our life has become far more public than we were ever comfortable with. Asking for help did not come easily; privacy had always been our refuge. But ALS left us no choice. The only way to survive was through vulnerability — through trusting that those who love us would understand. And they have. The love we’ve been given, the ways we’ve been lifted, has been nothing short of perfect. It has opened us to receive support in ways we never allowed before, and in turn, it has taught me to look deeper into what love really is.
For years, I thought I knew love. But it turns out I was only scratching the surface. Love is not the big trips, the jewelry, or the gifts I’ve given Grace. Those are fun, yes, but they are not love. Love is found in the quiet moments. Love is found in the loud ones too. Love is putting your partner’s needs above your own.
It would be easy for me to center my own needs. I have ALS. It is debilitating and devastating. I am a shell of the man I once was. No one — not even Grace — would fault me for turning inward. But love demands something more. From the day we met, and again on both our wedding days, I promised her — before God, before family and friends — that I was all in, 100%. That I would love her “in sickness and in health.”
Too often that phrase is understood to mean loving the other when they are sick.
But I now see that it means loving your partner even when you are sick.
That changes everything.
And so, I search for new ways to serve her, to love her still. That love often looks like accepting help. George setting me down on the toilet. Derek brushing my teeth. Jordan bathing me. Rita feeding me. Dru wiping my lips. DaveRisner massaging me. Eve laying hands on me in meditation. And behind them, so many more — Daisy, Chelsea, Susan, Julie, KK, Dana cooking for us, Jess going grocery shopping, Dana cleaning the ventilator and BiPAP accessories. One weekend, friends flew in from across the country to pack half our life into storage — Tad, Steve & Jenn, Ryan. People are flying in from all over the country, the world in fact, just to be of service to us. Every time I accept help from someone else, I give Grace a chance to rest. That is serving her. That is loving her.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
— Galatians 6:2
What I once thought was a burden, I now see as a gift. My village has taught me that allowing them to care for me is not weakness — it is giving them something sacred.
And so, I find myself learning how to love more deeply than I ever thought possible. I didn’t think it was possible to love my family and friends more than I already did. But I do. I love them with a fierceness that surprises even me.
God is teaching me trust. God is teaching me humility. For even as my body weakens, my love expands. And when I try to express how much they mean to me, my village answers back with words I believe come from Him:
“Dude, stop it. You’ve spent your whole life telling us how much you love us. We know. Now it’s our turn. Let us show you how much we love you. You don’t need to keep saying it. We ALREADY know.”
“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.”
— Song of Solomon 8:7
And then there is Grace.
My love, my wife, my partner in everything. If I ever wondered what the vows meant, now I know: they were never about survival, they were always about devotion. You are my anchor, my compass, and my home. Even as this disease takes away my strength, it sharpens my heart’s capacity to love you. ALS is teaching me many things, but the greatest of them is this: every day, in sickness and in health, I would choose you again.
Secret of My SucCecil 