Sorry, I'm Sad
When her husband was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in June 2019 and given 6-12 months to live, Kelsie Snow avoided other people's sad stories as a rule, but as time wore on she found herself seeking them out. Snow, a former sports reporter for The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and St. Paul Pioneer Press, began writing about her life on her website and learned there is comfort in knowing how others have loved, lost and kept going.
Sorry, I'm Sad chronicles the Snows' story in real-time. From the desperate early days, to the hopefulness of a promising clinical trial, to heartbreaking setbacks and constant grappling with mortality, and Chris' unexpected death in September of 2023, Kelsie, along with others she has met along this path, share stories about grief, loss and the importance of hope.
Sorry, I'm Sad
From the Archives: Jessie's Story
In March 2018, Jessie Ravnsborg was diagnosed with ALS. She was just 35 years old. She died just before her 37th birthday. In today's episode, our second about Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), you’ll meet Jessie through her mom, Heather Lucier. This is a story about choosing joy, about wringing out all the good from life that you can for as long as you can and, when the joy can no longer compete with the darkness of a most insidious disease, choosing to say goodbye. It's about facing your mortality, about knowing what matters to you in life and about the bravery of understanding what it means when those things move beyond your reach.
This episode of Sorry, I'm Sad was originally published in March, 2022. We are reposting it in advance of our next episode, which is a new episode with Jessie's mom, Heather, about ALS advocacy, what we owe the people we've lost and caregiving.
