Twenty five days before my father died, on my birthday exactly six years ago, he gave me a present. He had the sparkle back in his eye—the one that had been reduced by pancreatic cancer to an ashen ember—when he gave it to me. It was a small package, rectangular in shape, in crisp brown-paper wrapping. Twine neatly wrapped around the corners, crisscrossing back and forth arriving at a bow crafted by the sure hands of a man who built his first model airplane at age seven.

This small brown package will be the final gift my father ever gives me.

My family does gifts strangely. For instance, we have our own mangled interpretation of hanukkah, where each person of the family has a night to give out presents. If we have five people home for hanukkah, we celebrate only five of the eight nights. The joy of gifts are in the giving, not receiving, so before opening your present you must first guess what’s inside. This tradition is “plenty questions”, a more forgiving version than the standard twenty questions.

“Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?”, I ask.

We are in it for the game of teasing the gift out of the gifter. It’s like extracting [...] continue the story

A young man sets out on a quest to capture the perfect photograph. In the summer of 2005, I was involved in a severe car accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down. Upon waking up in the ICU, one face was staring back at me; my father’s. For the next month, my father had the nurses on duty wheel a chair into my room every single night, and that’s where he’d be until I opened my eyes in the morning.

Seven years since that fateful day in June, my father remains my biggest supporter. After more than two years in a wheelchair, I finally defied the odds and became vertical once more. I know deep within myself that this improbable recovery has a great deal to do with my father. And ‘The Photographer’ is my way of expressing  my gratitude. My father, the most reliable human being I’ve ever known.

Ara Sagherian

Writer and Director of the short film ‘The Photographer’ (2012)

Buzz Bissinger’s twin sons were born three and a half months premature in 1983. Gerry weighed one pound and fourteen ounces, Zachary one pound and eleven ounces. They were the youngest male twins ever to survive at that time at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest. They were a medical miracle, but there are no medical miracles without eternal scars.

They entered life three minutes–and a world–apart. Gerry, the older one, is a graduate student at Penn, preparing to become a teacher. His brother Zach has spent his life attending special schools and self-contained classrooms. He is able to work menial jobs such as stocking supplies. But he’ll never drive a car, or kiss a girl, or live by himself. He is a savant, challenged by serious intellectual deficits but also blessed with rare talents: an astonishing memory, a dazzling knack for navigation, and a reflexive honesty which can make him both socially awkward and surprisingly wise.

One summer night, Buzz and Zach hit the road to revisit all the places they have lived together during Zach’s 24 years. Zach revels in his memories, and Buzz hopes this journey into their shared past will bring them closer and reveal to him [...] continue the story

William Morgan and his three sons Matthew, Joshua and Andrew wait for their mom to get medication to treat her diabetes.

My name is Adam and I am 11 years old. I also have a brother Ian, who is 13 and an older sister named Karen. My Dad got ALS four years ago and now he is in a wheelchair and he can hardly talk at all.

The school that I go to and I, want to raise money for research to find a cure for my Dad. We used to do so much stuff together. I can’t remember very well when he could walk or use his hands.

We used to play road hockey together, but now he can only be the goalie in his wheelchair. Please help me to find a cure. Maybe if I could get enough money then the doctors could fix Dad so we could do everything together again.

The ALS Society asked if I could tell the world one thing about ALS what would it be. It is hard to say one thing because there is so much. There is so much that I want to tell people, so if I can only say one thing I am not sure what it would be but I’ll try.

ALS means amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but to me it can mean something else as [...] continue the story