ALS

For the first time in weeks I read the entries in Middle Earth News and this way learnt about the death of Melissa Kern early in March. I did not know her personally but read about her illness (she was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 35, which is unusual) and how she fought against it, never giving up, how she loved fandom as an extended arm of the family, and how Peter Jackson helped to fulfill one of her biggest wishes, namely to be part of the first Hobbit film. Though the scene did not appear in the theatrical version (I do not even know if it´s shown in the extended version) it must have been a highlight in a life cut short. With the sad story came memories of my childhood. I had a "best friend" then, living in the second floor of a town house, and as "Scary Christa and Christina" (my second name) we went down in history as the most dreadful girls that ever lived in a house inhabited by teachers mainly. When Christa was ten her second brother was born. I still remember me sitting in the park, waiting for her to join me, when she came running, to tell me that she had to stay at home and take care of her younger siblings, until her father came back home from hospital. I thought her new brother to be the cutest child ever and immediately asked my mother if I could have one, too, which was vigorously denied. Ten years later both of us were married and had long lost sight of each other. House and teachers were safe again. It was my mother who eventually told me that Christa´s youngest brother had been diagnosed with ALS at the age of 22. From then on I saw him only once, in a wheelchair, when his father lifted him out to carry him into their flat upstairs, and shortly afterwards he was commited to an asylum, where he died soon after, a fact my mother deliberately forgot to tell me, so I wasn´t even able to attend his funeral. His sickness had lasted for one and a half year only, striking the lad with an intensity not seen before in our local hospital. More than 20 years later there´s still no cure to ALS, not medication to stop the degeneration of the motor neurons. And I do not think it´s because it is impossible to find a cure, it´s because there´s never money enough to fund research! Wish mankind would invest the same amount of money used for weaponry for the development of new drugs, though I fear this day will never come!