Saying Thank You, Gracefully

It's hard to explain the conflicting emotions I felt when my husband, Kevin, received an invitation in May 1988 to attend his 25th class reunion at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

"This is great!" Kevin exclaimed. "It says meals will be in the dining hall and we'll be sleeping in our old dorms. Just like the old days! And there'll be a dinner-dance...and a five-mile race up and down the Hill! I can hardly wait!"

Kevin reeled off this list of activities with boyish enthusiasm as he sat in his motorized wheelchair, while I was thinking, There's no way we can do this.

Kevin suffers from advanced multiple sclerosis. He is severely impaired. Holy Cross is built on Mount Saint James—the Hill, they call it. Everywhere you turn there are steep grades or huge flights of steps. We'd be constantly calling attention to ourselves asking for help with Kevin's wheelchair, or having everybody wait for us. Then too, Kevin would have to be spoon-fed, in view of everyone in the dining hall, and would need assistance in the men's room.

It wasn't only that I was hesitant to subject him—and myself—to that kind of embarrassment; I was sure we'd make the others feel uncomfortable as well. We would end up being a drag and a burden to everyone on what was supposed to be a fun weekend.

Kevin's old classmates—Charlie Buchta, Denny Golden and Pete O'Connor—were all healthy, vigorous men in their prime. Well-meaning as they are, healthy people can inadvertently be thoughtless around the disabled. His friends would be swapping stories about their old athletic triumphs and their current business deals and successes. Kevin won't even be able to lift his glass to toast them, I said to myself.

When he was healthy, Kevin had been successful in sports and business too. In high school and college he had run on the track and cross-country teams. Later he owned his own real-estate brokerage firm, built a shopping center and taught college courses in real estate.

Even when the onset of his MS in the mid-1970s caused slurred speech and loss of balance, Kevin kept working. By 1986 he could no longer walk. Fatigue and loss of muscle control took an added toll. Finally he had to stop working. Yet Kevin bore it all with a kind of cheerful optimism and an unshakable faith in God.

The day came when we had to accept Social Security and Medicare. But thanks to a modest inheritance, we owned a beautiful home, and our three daughters were in college. I was completing my master's degree in social work so that I could increase our income down the road.

We had never been in real want, yet in spite of our blessings, there were always problems for us as an MS family. This invitation to Kevin's class reunion was one. We kept putting off our decision about attending. May headed toward June and the reunion weekend.