Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel (PDF)

Description

Susan Spencer-Wendel’s Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy is a moving and inspirational memoir by a woman who makes the most of her final days after discovering she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).After Spencer-Wendel, a celebrated journalist at the Palm Beach Post, learns of her diagnosis of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, she embarks on several adventures, traveling toseveral countries and sharing special experiences with loved ones. One trip takes Spencer-Wendel and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Marina, to New York City’s Kleinfeld’s Bridal to shop for Marina’s future wedding dress—an occasion that Susan knows she will never see.Co-written with Bret Witter, Until I Say Good-Bye is Spencer-Wendel’s account of living a full life with humor, courage, and love, but also accepting death with grace and dignity. It’s a celebration of life, a look into the face of death, and the effort we must make to show the people that we love and care about how very much they mean to us.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Susan Spencer-Wendel had to face the question, ‘What would you do if you had a year to live?’ This profound, tender, and often funny account of her experiences will remind readers of what really matters most: love.” — Gretchen Rubin, New York Times-bestselling author of The Happiness Project“It’s a touching and brutally honest account of one mother’s inspiring attempt to get the most out of the time she has left.” — USA Today“Her honesty and frustration are underscored with a wicked sense of humor . . .” — ABC News“All you can do . . . is to turn the pages, slack-jawed, in awe at her insistence on having powerful, individual experiences . . .” — Huffington Post“This heartbreaking and heartwarming good-bye will make you laugh as much as it makes you cry. Susan Spencer-Wendel’s determination to find the joy in life after having been dealt the ALS card is both inspirational and enlightening.” — Cokie Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters“Spencer-Wendel writes with courage and strength. . . . Her life will sadly be cut short, but in writing her story, she shows her family and friends how to go on, choosing happiness and love over fear.” — Publishers Weekly“. . . almost unbearably moving chronicle of how Spencer-Wendel went about creating lasting moments in that year for the ones she loved . . .” — New York Daily News“A poignant, wise love story.” — Kirkus Reviews“The inspirational account of a woman whose ALS diagnosis and subsequent physical decline don’t prevent her from enjoying life to the fullest, which she proves.” — O, the Oprah Magazine“The tales are painfully honest, and they’re heartbreaking because we know the inevitable outcome. But mostly, they’re inspiring. Spencer-Wendel, even in the darkest of moments, remains insistent on happiness-staggeringly so.” — U.S. News & World Report“Her heart-ripping book chronicles what she did immediately after her diagnosis: she decided to embrace life while death chased her down..…endearing and all too human” — New York Times“The mother of three children ages 7 to 15 describes her poignant last efforts to travel the world and stay close to her family and community.” — AARP.com From the Back Cover Moving and heartfelt, this New York Times–bestselling memoir by a woman battling terminal illness has inspired readers around the globe to celebrate life and the people they love. About the Author Susan Spencer-Wendel was an award-winning journalist at the Palm Beach Post for twenty years. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida, and has been honored for her work by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Florida Society of News Editors. 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 co-authored eight New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 bestseller The Monuments Men. He lives with his family in Decatur, Georgia. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Beautifully written book about all of the things the author discovered during her lifetime with ALS! Courageously funny and inspirational as the family members learn to live with and love the author until her death from this awful disease!

⭐And on the other hand, this is a boldly courageous work by a woman of privilege, with a huge support system. Yes, it’s hard to arrive at the point where one can no longer do basic self-care tasks. And it’s hard on the husband and kids to have to respectively juggle and grieve.I recently helped my own father die of a different, but just as devastating, neurodegenerative disease. But there weren’t hundreds of friends bringing food; there was no book deal to provide us with relief from financial drain. There was my mother, myself, and a little bit of help from the VA. And then there was the nursing home.That’s the usual course of events in the life of a person without the financial means and the “gigantious” support system this author was blessed to have. I guess I’m a bit frustrated with the expectation of pathos: if one is going to have a devastating disease, she had all of the cards stacked in her direction.I do have a dog in this fight, you see. I myself am in the early stages of high-level spinal stenosis, which, among all the wonderful gifts I inherited from my father, is the one he didn’t want to give me. But I got it anyway.My left arm is all but useless. I fall on my ass on a daily basis. The toes of my sensible shoes are worn down because I can’t lift my feet high enough to keep from scuffing them as I walk.Walk.I’m so glad I can still walk.I lost my ability to work at my profession ten years ago, because I have an even scarier illness: Bipolar Disorder. So I live on the border of life and death, moment to moment. Sometimes one day at a time is just too long. The deadly fear that one morning I’ll wake up a quadriplegic like my father, combined with the baseline chaos in my brain, makes each moment a struggle to just keep on keeping on. Putting one foot in front of the other, till bedtime when I take my cocktail of drugs to control the muscle spasms and the brain spasms, and bring on blessed sleep, a temporary respite from the daylight suffering.So, although I admire the author’s courage and tenacity, I can’t seem to get past the issue of privilege, and how it sculpts the trajectory of suffering.A comfortable home, instead of a dreary, smelly nursing home.A dedicated, loving husband who responds to every need.Children, who desperately need that critical conversation, the one where you say, “I know that you guys already know that I have this disease, and that one day I will die because of it. We need to be able to talk together about this now.”Before my own disease took away my ability to work, I was a pediatrician.I have counseled many parents whose days were numbered, because of cancer, ALS, other equally nasty things.To anyone who reads this, who is in that unenviable position, I beg of you, don’t wait. Don’t let your children suffer in silence.I felt so incredibly privileged to hear my father say, over and over, in his halting, slurred speech: “I know I’m dying. I love you.”A thousand kisses, a thousand “I love you’s,” millions of tears…Of course it hurts, then as now, but at least we had those precious moments: “I’m dying. I love you!”Give your children that gift, whether you leave them with a book and a movie deal, or whether you pass your last days in a seedy nursing home.After all, none of us lives forever. And most of us will gutter and go out like a candle in the wind.”I’m dying. I love you.”Laura P. Schulman, M.D., M.A., FAAPbipolarforlife.me

⭐Words just seem inadequate in reviewing this book but I am going to give it a try because I want to encourage everyone to read it. I’ve told everyone I know to read it and have purchased a few copies to give to friends. If you think this book is going to be depressing, think again. When she says she is living with joy, she truly is. How she found the strength to do all the things she wanted to do is really beyond my comprehension, but I consider myself so lucky to have been able to follow her journey.I picked this book up on a trip to the bookstore with my 14-year old son. I was in a rush, didn’t want to spend significant time or money in there, but he wanted to choose his summer reading books so I chose a few books to thumb through while I waited for him to browse. Until I Say Goodbye was the first one I looked at, and needless to say, I sat on the floor in the bookstore for the next hour, the other books I selected remained untouched and unopened. My son approached me with his handful of books and I knew we needed to add one more to the pile to purchase.What can I say? Susan is not some fictional character that has extraordinary highs and lows. She is living the remainder of her life in a manner that any of us might do, if we had the courage to not allow ourselves to wallow in self pity. Some of the chapters completely blindsided me in the way they touched me – the tiki hut she and her husband had built, the mango party that came afterward, for some reason that chapter had me in tears even though it wasn’t really sad. I fell in love with her strong husband John, her best friend Nancy, her sister Stephanie, all her children but especially Wesley and his drawings – I saw all those people as similar people in my own life. Her trip to Cyprus, the scrapbooking of her children’s pictures, meeting her birth mother for the first time, recognizing her adoptive parents shortcomings but loving them just the same, her insistence on wearing high heels even if meant wearing them while in a wheelchair, just makes me wish I knew Susan. I feel like I do know her through her book.Please read this book! We’re all dying, really. Some sooner than others. Read about how this woman has accepted her fate but decided to live what is left of her life on her own terms. You won’t be sorry. Thank you Susan! Your book changed the way I look at living.

⭐I feel like a heel only giving a 2 star review in light of the subject but the truth is I did not find the book captivating. I think if the author was not terminally ill the book would be a flop. While some events that took place were interesting I did not feel that most of the book was very interesting. I think it was a great accomplishment in light of the circumstances but much of what was written, while it may be dear to those close to her, I found boring. Sorry, I bought it and I wanted to like it, but am rating it on the merit of writing versus admiration for a person who in her condition was able to finish a book against all odds.

⭐I loved how Susan’s character was so evident from her writing tone, aside from what she said. You could hear her speak to you, like it was a one to one conversation, which will be a wonderful gift for her children. An extraordinary woman, clearly in terms of guts and intellect, but also in the depth of tenderness she shows to towards her loved ones, her acceptance of her fate, and her sheer determination to eek the last bit of joy from her already very full life. I think this family have lost a wonderful woman, but in writing this book she has left a great legacy.

⭐I don’t normally write reviews but this book has been a really good read and read it in 48 hours,one of those books that gets you.Well written with humour from a person with little quality of life but determaination all the same. The only point I would make it ended without knowing what happens next, but still a very good 5*.

⭐This book is unusual in that it deals with one womans approach to the fact that she is dying. It is uplifting because she deals with it and helps her family come to terms with it. It is not sweetness and light but honest and sometimes there is humour, which is much needed in what otherwise could have been a doom and gloom read. This is a warts and all and I love the fact that she has her wish list and acheives it. Also there is no weepy ending and lets u imagine how this brave lady does eventually pass away.

⭐I liked this until they go to Budapest and, inexplicably, kill three rabbits by hand before eating them, one of which was grey and white. The author is proud and admiring that her husband has the courage to murder these warm, soft, loving creatures.Disgraceful.

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