“Old Dog, New ALS Tricks “ Chapter 125

I've always considered myself a bit of a romantic. Every year for our anniversary, I “try” to surprise Laura with something special. Dinners at home, a restaurant, and even a private chef cooking for us at home. Trips to different countries and trips close by, I even tried trips where we had to fly. One of our most romantic anniversary trips, I wasn't even there.

While we were living in Germany, I saw a post about Polingano A Mare, a little town in Italy. I found a room with a view of the ocean to wake up to and a restaurant that was carved into the side of a cliff looking out over the ocean. I even had to make reservations months out. The city was small and quaint. Everything about the weekend was very romantic and the pictures of the location looked amazing. This trip was going to be was the best anniversary yet.

Unfortunately, two weeks before we were set to travel, my job required me to go to another country for an emergency mission. I was unable to get out of the work trip and our anniversary trip was all booked with no refunds. What was I going to do? Laura’s good friend Elaine was available to replace me so they went together. When they got to the town it was beautiful and the weather was great. Laura didn’t know about the details, but I filled Elaine in. Laura was so excited for everything that popped up. The room was beautiful and faced the ocean, however, the window was about 5 feet up on the wall and about a one foot circle ⭕️. They really enjoyed peeking out of the window one at a time. The next day they got dressed up and went to enjoy the dinner that I had planned. While sitting in the cave and looking out over the ocean, they enjoyed how romantic everything was. They were approached by a woman who stopped by their table to say, “I’m totally ok with you both, I think it’s ok.” Insinuating they were a couple. Laura and Elaine laughed it off, thanking her, to not let her comments ruin the evening. All in all, I’m told it was a perfectly romantic weekend. If only I had been there.

So this year, as our 29th anniversary approached, I didn’t know what to do. After all, I am sitting here in a wheelchair. I can’t sing to her (which I am sure is a good thing). I can’t hand feed her fresh fruit, nor will it fit down my feeding tube. I can’t make dinner for Laura or go away for a romantic weekend either.

As you may already know from previous posts, I have been doing a lot of writing lately. I have been taking classes with the Creative Pursuits Program hosted by the ALS Assoc (https://www.als.org/support/programs/creative-pursuits-program) and pushing myself to find new out of the box ways to express myself.  I was also recently introduced to some new creative tools I can utilize using only my eyes. 

So, for our anniversary this year, I wrote a poem. The poem is based around something I say to Laura every night before we go to sleep. Then I learned how to use a new music program and added the words to “Suno” to create a song. Thirty versions later and I was satisfied with the results. I still felt like I needed something more. I decided to make a movie of us using iMovie and added the song. However, the slides didn’t transition the way I'd hoped, so I did some research and found that I needed to animate the first slide for it to work. This led me to learning how to animate pictures using Messenger. Finally, I synced up the music with the slides and completed my gift to Laura.

Whoever said you can’t teach old dogs new tricks is wrong. I have been learning new tricks every day - even with ALS - and so can you. Here’s to keeping the romance alive!

Love and Blessings 

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