“I can’t process this,” I tell the social worker who is sitting at my kitchen table. “I am unable to write a single word.”

I need to grocery shop, I continue. Also, the Cubs won the World Series. Rob is in Arkansas. And for some reason, I can’t get Shakira’s name out of my head; it is like an unwanted mantra, a roadblock to every cohesive thought. I blame Scarlett, and Zootopia, which she watched on both plane rides last weekend.

The social worker has short white hair. It is kind of curly and kind of spiky, and I think she looks cool in her cat glasses. She waves her hand in my direction. “So you’ll do it next week,” she says, without concern.

But when I woke up this morning, the sky was so blue and the ocean out my back door so calm, that I felt sure today was the day. Yes, I’m still exhausted from our trip to Boston, which was followed by a Diwali celebration, and Halloween. But all I have to do is bring words together into sentences, and surely I can make that happen without…Shakira. Shit.

What I want to write about is Boston, but like I told the social worker, I can’t do it yet. We were only there for two days, but in the span of those two days, it feels like a lifetime happened. In reality, it was just meetings, lunches and dinners. But more importantly, it was people, their stories, their faces that I knew only from an app on my phone. It was my friends who I rely on to get me through life with ALS, even though I’ve only met them once before. It was people kneeling down next to me, wide eyed and earnest, as they explained that they were cheering for me, that they have also experienced ALS, but from the other side, as someone who has lost a loved one. At the end of the night, I had so much lipstick on my ear, it looked like I was bleeding from all the kisses I had received.

Saturday night was the White Coat Affair, the fundraising gala for ALS TDI, and the main reason we were in town. Scarlett spent the evening at the table next to ours with her adopted family, Matt and Caitlyn Bellina, his parents, their boys. Ask Scarlett what her favorite part of Boston was and she’ll easily tell you it was five-year-old JP Bellina. Although a close second might be the 10 dinner rolls she took down before joining me on stage to do a short presentation and then ask for donations. The purpose of the night was to end ALS, and the room raised over half $1 million. A smashing success.

Jay Smith. Stephen Finger. Beth Hebron. Jose Cofino. Andrea Peet. Cory Reich. Kyle Connors. Meg Macdonald. Ellen Corindia. Their names should be my mantra. All the people with ALS – – and there were more – – who populated the weekend. Wheelchairs and feeding tubes. Strength and emotion. Bobby Forster was supposed to be there, but instead he got a tracheotomy. Amanda Bernier might have been there, but she died. I spoke about her on the stage, and was shocked to discover afterward that her husband had been in the audience. I was able to hug him and tell him in person how sorry I was for his loss. Her loss.

Of course there was more. I saw my cousin and her youngest son. We spent time with friends who live in Boston. Scarlett and Rob went to the public garden. Michele Dupree made it all possible by assisting me while my family explored the city.

I’m still having trouble processing everything that came out of this weekend. But my takeaway is that I’m never alone, that this journey I am on, though I never would have chosen it, has brought me a new kind of family and a community that I’m proud to be a part of. And I’m proud that Scarlett is a part of it, too. Click here to see a clip of our presentation from Saturday night.

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