By Beverly Beckham/ Guest Columnist
North Shore TownOnline.com
Friday, December 31, 2004

Salvatore Fortunato Grasso was how he signed his paintings, when he could sign them, before his thumbprint became his signature. It was a big name for a big guy. Before he got sick, he weighed close to 300 pounds.

Now he weighs half that. An artist who once had shows on Newbury Street, he lies in a bed at New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton, MA unable to do a thing. He's been lying in a bed for 8 1/2 years. His life is four walls and a small window, which he can't turn his head to see. Someone has to wash his face, brush his teeth, comb his hair, turn him and change him. A respirator keeps him alive.

Why would someone want to live this way?

Grasso wonders, why would anyone choose to die?

He was 49 - a widower with two young children - when he was diagnosed in 1995 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neuromuscular disease with no known cause or cure. ALS strikes 5,000 Americans a year.

At first, his friends helped out. But the disease moved fast and Grasso had to move from his Gloucester home to his brother's in Norwood, then to a nursing home.

In the last two years, he's had colon cancer, a kidney removed, and he's lost his ability to "talk." He used to look through a monocle attached to a pair of glasses and use his eye movements to spell out words, letter by letter, which appeared on a tiny computer screen. He even sent e-mail this way. But he hasn't been able to do this since earlier this year, and his world has shrunk.

So he communicates with yes and no, raising his eyes for yes, lowering them for no. It's hard to see if you're not looking. The only thing he can still do is smile. But when you say to him, "Are you still OK with this?" his eyes say, "yes."

It takes a village to care for Grasso. His 73-year-old brother, George, still spends most nights by his side. Old friends come from Gloucester now and then. Kim Lauzier, a respiratory therapist, cuts his hair, dyes his mustache and stops by just to talk. Fred Shea, who arrived with a choir during the Christmas season five years ago, continues to visit.

Last June, 15-year-old Leah Bloom of Stoughton and 17-year-old Laura Swearingen of Winchester began showing up every Monday night for an hour simply to sing to him.

They compete with call bells and alarms to bring joy to a man who, before he got sick, brought joy to others. He was a mentor to Boston's inner-city kids, a Little League coach and a youth hockey coach. "He was always doing something for someone," his brother, George says.

Now he's on the receiving end. The girls sing. And Sal Grasso, who can do nothing, smiles.