Until I Say Good-Bye

Bret Witter

Susan Spencer-Wendel

In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - Lou Gehrig's disease, an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. While Susan cannot stop the rapid decline of her body and her inevitable death, she refuses to give up on life. A woman of immense strength and indomitable spirit, the forty-five-year-old mother of three has made every day count. After her diagnosis, Susan began taking special trips: to the Yukon, to see the Northern Lights with her best friend; to Budapest, where she and her husband spent the first two years of their marriage; to Northern California, to meet her birth mother; to Cyprus, the home country of the deceased birth father she never met. But one of her most important adventures was a visit to New York City and Kleinfeld's Bridal, where she and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Marina, shared an unforgettably moving experience: shopping for the perfect dress for a wedding Susan will not see. 'As my beautiful daughter walks out of the dressing room in white silk, I will see her ten years in the future, in the back room right before her wedding, giddy and crying, overwhelmed by a moment I will never share . . . When my only daughter thinks of me on her wedding day, as I hope she will, I want her to think of my smile when I say to her at Kleinfeld's, 'You are my beautiful.' 'News of Susan's remarkable story has spread across the world, and the response has been overwhelming. Now, in this unforgettable memoir, she invites readers on her transformational journey, sharing the gratitude and wisdom that guide her. 'I am writing about accepting, about living with joy and dying with joy and laughing a helluva lot in the process.' Until I Say Good-Bye is the fulfillment of her final wish: 'To make people laugh and cry and hug their children and joke with their friends and dwell in how wonderful it is to be alive.'