My father's step-sister, Lou, walked into the room and asked who the boy in the wheelchair was. When my mother told her that the boy was Chris, Lou said she had thought that Chris had already died a couple years earlier. My mother said he hadn't yet died, but he was expected to die in a couple years.

I became enraged when I heard the conversation in front of Chris where he could clearly hear it. I stormed into the kitchen and said it wasn't true, that Chris wouldn't die and that some people with muscular dystrophy lived long lives. I then wheeled Chris into the living room where I leaned my head next to him and held him in my arms. Both of us seemed to be saying, "Cruel, cruel world."

Chris then added that I couldn't possibly know what it was like to be in his position.