Copyright 2004 News & Record (Greensboro, NC)  
News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
October 24, 2004 Sunday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: GENERAL NEWS; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1309 words
BYLINE: BY ALLISON PERKINS Staff Writer
DATELINE: GREENSBORO

It's almost dinner time, and Claire is just waking from a nap. The still-groggy 2-year-old toddles into the den, climbs onto her sister's lap and buries her face in her chest.

Emily, 8, rubs Claire's back and coos to the tot as their sisters, Ellen, 6, and Anna, 4, rush into the room and pile onto the chair with their sisters for a giant group hug.

Their mother, Catherine, calls to the older girls from the kitchen. She needs help setting the table. The doorbell rings, and Michelle Ingold arrives with a warm pan of baked spaghetti and cheese bread.

Through the commotion, Keith Wood sits motionless, taking it all in. He winks at daughter Claire and smiles. He smiles at all his little girls as they cuddle together.

Disease has stolen his ability to pick up Claire and hug her tight, to be the dad the older girls remember wrestling with on the floor, pushing them on the swing in the back yard and dutifully playing Barbies each night.

But his smile - that remains.

Two years ago, Keith, 35, was diagnosed with ALS -- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. In the simplest terms, it stops the motor nerves, those that carry messages from the brain to the muscles . The muscles weaken and eventually waste away, leading to paralysis and death, usually within five years.

In the fall of 2002, Keith noticed that his thumb seemed to be twitching. By January, he couldn't move it. Within five months, he was diagnosed with the disease for which there is no known cause or cure.

ALS, relatively speaking, is rare. Only about 20,000 Americans suffer from it, with 5,000 new cases discovered each year.

Now Keith shuffles with the help of a walker, but he cannot feed, dress or shower on his own. His speech has become slurred.

But today, Keith is smiling. Today is a good day. He has his girls, his wife and the hundreds of people from the community and his church, Lawndale Baptist, who help the family every day - the people who have made a disease that is slowly destroying his life some of the best days ever.

Consider Ingold, who doesn't just bring spaghetti but stays to help with the meal. While she feeds tiny Claire, Catherine feeds her husband.

Ingold is one of an army of volunteers who bring dinner, mow the yard, do the laundry, pick up around the house and baby-sit the girls so Keith and Catherine can still go out on the occasional date.

Last fall, church members raised thousands of dollars to send the family to Disney World for a week. Keith was still able to push a stroller and walk on his own.

While the Woods were away, more than 100 people helped redecorate the inside of the family's newly purchased house. With little time to unpack or get things in order after Keith's diagnosis, the volunteers told Catherine they wanted the family to feel like they had a home, not just a house.

"They were a perfectly normal, happy, church-going family, and then they were facing this really devastating diagnosis with little hope of a cure," says Sandy Bassett, who helped with the renovations. "It just touched the hearts of a lot of people, not just here in the church, but in the community."

Peggy Allen, who helped spearhead the makeover, said when church members shopped at garage sales to purchase furniture for the Woods, people who heard their story often donated items.

And within the church, members began to reveal their hidden talents, creating handmade furniture, painting murals on the kitchen cupboards and in the girls' rooms, and sewing curtains for every window in the house.

Even members whose own limitations prevented them from doing too much physical labor dutifully showed up every day to remove empty paint cans or help serve lunch to the crew.

"We got more out of it than we could ever give," Allen says of the volunteers who worked from dawn till dusk that week.

When the family returned , they were wowed by the work.

"The generosity of people has been incredible," Catherine says. "I often wonder why we were chosen. Evidently, God thinks we can handle this. It might break another family, but it has made us stronger."

Friends who have come to their aid say the Woods' strength and positive attitude through the ordeal has inspired them in ways that transcend words.

"I can't tell you what an inspiration they are," Allen says. "They are so positive. I'm afraid I probably wouldn't be so gracious."

* * *

Since the onset of his disease, Keith and Catherine say their extended family has built an unbreakable support system around them - one they believe God led them to long before ALS struck.

When Keith was having difficulty finding work in Tennessee, Catherine's sister told the couple about teaching jobs in Greensboro. Keith interviewed, was hired to teach language arts at Jackson Middle School, and the family moved to the city in 1996. Now, Catherine's sister and Keith's brother both live within walking distance.

Every Wednesday night, the Woods join their church family for supper at Lawndale Baptist. Teenagers take turns bringing the family their drinks and helping Catherine balance six plates in the buffet line.

Many of the youths have helped raise money for research during an annual ALS walk in Winston-Salem. This year, the Woods and more than 100 of their friends raised $9,000.

"It's the godly thing to do," Josh Foster, 14, says of helping the Wood family.

Keith admits he's a little worried about leaving his wife to care for the girls alone. But, he adds, she's not alone. The couple's move from Tennessee to North Carolina, they believe, was God's way of preparing them for the disease.

Not only did the move bring them closer to family and to Lawndale Baptist, but it also gave them easy access to several Triad doctors who specialize in ALS.

"God put us here to be near the doctors and our church," Catherine says.

Though the disease, Keith and Catherine say, may slowly be stealing their time, it's not stealing today.

"We know what's out there. He'll become paralyzed, and if we focus on that, we will be overburdened," Catherine says. "We focus on today. We can handle today."

Today, or any day, is buzzing at the Wood home.

Long before Keith starts his day, Emily and Ellen are out the door to Joyner Elementary School while the two youngest girls head to preschool for a few hours.

Keith will be completely worn out by the end of his own morning routine -- a shower, dressing, breakfast.

Throughout the day, volunteers come and go, bringing food, taking laundry, leaving to run errands, coming to pick up the girls. Catherine never stops amid the activity.

Keith sits, watching it all, aching to - but unable - to help.

"It's frustrating," he says. But, he adds, his wife of 13 years and college sweetheart, is "really phenomenal."

"Under normal circumstances," he says, "it would be hard enough."

Catherine has watched her husband, an avid Tennessee fan, a piano player of 18 years and a deacon at their church, whither away in the past year.

Their youngest daughter was born shortly before his diagnosis. She will never remember her father not sitting still in a chair.

But her sisters have already started to fill the gaps where memories don't exist. Their talk is full of remembering the times "before Daddy was handicap," "when Daddy was normal" and "before Daddy became weak," they say.

And the oldest of the four understands his fate.

"He's going to go to heaven and live with Jesus," Emily says, matter-of-factly. "It's going to be kind of OK, but we're going to miss him a lot."

For now, the family has stopped counting the days. They're simply trying to make every day a good one.

"Everyone wants to know how much time he has, but we've stopped asking," Catherine says. "It's not as important now."