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can,” my mom said with some of her patented hope.
    There isn’t a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease, but there are ways to deal with it. With my dad, the disease had started its attack in his upper body. That’s not good because it can go after the diaphragm, which in turn affects breathing. That’s how most ALS patients go: their lungs weaken so they can’t get the almighty oxygen to the rest of their bodies. But my mom made it clear that once an issue came up, we’d toss a solution at it. So, if my dad couldn’t chew, he’d go on a feeding tube. If he couldn’t stand in the shower, he’d get a shower chair. If he couldn’t walk, he’d go in a wheelchair. If he couldn’t breathe, he’d go on a respirator. If he couldn’t talk, he’d use a communication device. If he couldn’t make it to the toilet for a shit or piss, he’d use diapers and a urinal. It didn’t matter how much any of this cost. My parents were willing to spend everything they had. A lot of ALS patients choose to do nothing and just let the disease take them. Or some will do the feeding tube and wheelchair grind. Only a small percentage elect to go on a respirator. But it sounded like my dad was going full bore. It was the full Marshall Never-Give-Up Package.
    â€œI don’t mind spending the rest of my life taking care of him,” my mom said as she took my dad’s Lou Gehrig’s disease hand into her cancer hand and smiled a supportive smile.
    But the thought of seeing my crippled dad in a wheelchair, shitting into a diaper while some robot replaced his gentle voice and some clunky machine breathed for him, sounded like a nightmare to me. I took a sip of my eggnog and looked at Abby’s sweet face, trying to push the image out of my mind.
    The next item on the list was what to do with my dad’s newspapers. My siblings and I were too busy pursuing our own interests to give a fuck about the family business. My dad had a partner, Kris, but Kris was looking to retire. So my dad figured that he’d sell the papers to make things easier when he got sick. He certainly couldn’t run a newspaper from a wheelchair while hooked to a breathing machine.
    Next on the list was the Boston Marathon. My dad had run his skinny little ass off to qualify for it, and he still wanted to do it. We weren’t sure if he should be running now that he was terminally ill. But Dr. Bromberg seemed to think it would be okay, as long as he stayed hydrated and continued to eat well.
    â€œHe’s still going to run it,” my mom proclaimed.
    â€œReally?” I said. “I mean, that’s really inspiring and all, but is it really okay?”
    â€œI’ll be fine. I’m going to keep running,” my dad explained.
    On the one hand, I thought it was a complete mistake. By this point, I had read a lot more about ALS. I read that though they don’t know what causes Lou Gehrig’s disease, it seems to occur with greater frequency in those people who push their bodies to the max. Lou Gehrig himself was famous for setting the record for most consecutive baseball games played, 2,130—a record that stood for fifty-six years before Cal Ripken Jr. finally broke it. I thought all the running was a contributing factor to my dad’s diagnosis. It certainly couldn’t be good for the muscles, and it probably drained my dad of all the nutrients that had kept him so healthy and strong over the years.
    But on the other hand, my dad loved running. It was his escape, his therapy, his release. Whether he ran or not, he still had Lou Gehrig’s disease, so he might as well die doing something he loved.
    My mom was a little uncertain about the marathon, but she knew how much he loved it, so she decided to fully support it. Sam and my dad’s other running pals, Donna and Paula, said they’d run it with him to make sure he made it through.
    Next up was managing