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I originally wrote We Crack Ourselves Up in 2015 as a memoir assignment for a university creative nonfiction class, capturing my experience of growing up with a father who faced Primary Progressive MS with humor and resilience. Now, nearly a decade later and after his passing, I’m sharing this story publicly to offer an intimate glimpse into our family’s journey, shaped by love, laughter, and adapting to each new 'normal.' I hope that others, especially those affected by MS or chronic illness, find comfort and inspiration in our story and in the belief that, no matter the struggle, we can adapt, find joy, and stay connected. A whole new revision and reflection is due given his passing and a decade of time, but that’s for another post.

Inspired by my father’s journey, I founded Expedition MS to help build understanding, connection, and support for others navigating MS. I now invite you to share your story with us, so that together, we can foster resilience, community, and hope.

— Duff Archie, Founder, Expedition MS

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🔽 Listen here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Wp9SW9A42EtrzPtaUjqzdphz9N8mICK/view?usp=sharing

This past summer, my dad and I were sitting, gazing out at Cazenovia Lake, in the shade of the largest maple tree in the backyard of my maternal grandparents’ two-story estate-like house on Ridge Road in upstate New York for their 60th wedding anniversary party. Everything was normal. Under a stunning July blue sky, I was talking with my dad who was sitting in his new tilt-able, more comfortable wheelchair, the latest sign of advancement of the multiple sclerosis he’d been battling since 1999. With six children, eleven grandchildren, and even a great-grand child, this summer family celebration was the first time in a decade that my mom’s family, plus extended family, was together, and hanging, unspoken, over the assembled family was the worry it would be the last such gathering. Mom’s older sister, Nancy, had been diagnosed with ALS in February, my grandparents are reaching their late 80s—who knows if the family will ever all be together again.

“How’s work?” Dad asked.

“Good. The kids at sailing camp always keep me entertained.”

“How’s the climbing gym?”

I moaned. “Stressful. I have no free time anymore.”

His eyebrows raised and a smirk appeared on his face. “Welcome to adulthood,” he observed with his usual irony.

Our family in one of our favorite spots in Acadia National Park

Tim and Nancy

As I talked with my dad, Aunt Nancy, who was (unbelievably it seemed, already) in a wheelchair as well, sat across the wide yard. As I sat with my dad, I couldn’t help noticing how more people were crowded around wanting to talk to Nancy than to him. As I drove back to the hotel with my mom and younger brother later that night I mentioned this:

“Did you notice how everyone seemed more concerned about Nancy than Dad? It makes me mad. It’s so frustrating. It’s as if he’s old news.”

“I did see that,” my mom responded. “It makes me frustrated too,” she said with a cold, calm voice.

Of course Mom’s family loved Dad, I thought, it was just because it was the first time they saw Nancy in a wheelchair, and an ALS diagnosis communicated an immediate concern of lethality. But, secretly, I felt selfish, wishing a “fair share” of family concern would be on Dad, who has struggled with his progressive neurological condition with grace and humor since I was 3 years old.

Reflecting further, I took another view.  Dad would have hated a crowd of in-law’s ogling him like some a zoo animal because of his physical state. No matter the setting, from first to the last day, Dad prefers that MS be made to adapt to our family, not the other way around, for as long as absolutely possible, in as many ways as possible. Over many years, through his persistent focus on the “normal” parts of our lives, while laughing off the frankly awful parts that come from progressive MS, my Dad has given a tremendous gift to Mom, my little brother, and me very personally.  I suppose it took Aunt Nancy’s situation on that lovely, but also sad, July afternoon to set my own reflection on Dad in motion, as a young man coming to terms with reality, not a boy.

Seventeen years earlier, I was sitting in an over-stuffed chintz armchair that, from the looks of it, had been there long before my two year old little kid butt ever sat in it. I was eating my favorite breakfast, a blueberry bagel with nothing on it, while Dad was lounging comfortably across from me eating a cheese Danish, his go to. After our weekly “Music Together” class, we had stopped at St. Elmos Coffee pub in Del Ray, where all the employees knew us by name. For more than a year, this would be our ritual.  Our seats and our dietary selections never varied, as we killed time together after music class, or a speech therapy session.

Half a year later, just on the eve of my third birthday, in a moment preserved in a favorite family photo, I was standing at the curb outside the Palace Hotel in New York City, as my dad crouched protectively behind me. Sheltered in his arms, I raised my little hand to call a taxi, my mom also at my side. Only much later would I learn what was really going on with the adults at that moment.  The day before, back at our home in Virginia, the neurologist had called Dad to confirm that the MRI tests indicated he had primary progressive multiple sclerosis, a disease he knew well from his grandmother’s experience. Rather than wallowing or postponing, Dad instead kept his promise to me and took me on my first trip to New York City on the Amtrak train to meet up with Mom after her business in New York concluded. Dad set the example that day, for the rest of our journey with the (stupid, he would joke) disease: MS doesn’t get to cancel family trips. The Archies’ go anyway.

Not too many months after my first trip to New York City, I was back home, climbing the green and yellow stegosaurus jungle gym within ten minutes walking distance from my new house in the newly developed Old Town Greens in Alexandria, Virginia. I could see something was wrong. Dad was acting slower than usual, not chasing me up ladders and down slides too small for grown-ups. I pestered him to come and play, but he said, “Sorry, I just can’t today.  My legs are tired today.”

Formal medical explanations for tired legs no doubt came later, though I have no recollection of them. Dramatic or self-pitying or apparently even memorable announcements about MS weren’t Dad’s style even though I now realize he was struggling with walking, driving, and many other physical tasks. Instead, I remember times like the following Christmas when, leaving speech therapy with my dad, I said “Merry Christmas,” proudly getting out every syllable to Dad’s delight.

I shuffled down the stairs to our red Chevy Tahoe, and Dad buckled me into my booster seat. We proceeded to Firehook, another favorite coffee house in Old Town, for my favorite orange yogurt cake, and on the way home blasted Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

When I was two and three, my dad was the one who took care of me, while my mom worked as a lawyer at a global law firm.  I now realize that in fact, this is when he acquired MS—or, as he often jokingly phrased it “a major neurological illness.”  He said this phrase in the same way Ralphie’s Dad announced in A Christmas Story upon receiving a “major award.”  But in my preschool years, all I can recall is a little guy and his dad hanging around Old Town, going about their daily business, singing to favorite songs, eating what they liked, where they liked, chatting up the ladies behind the counter, and seeing the sights of New York.

Thanks, Dad, my 19-year-old self thought.