Fifty-seven-year-old Lee Carpenter, a nearly lifelong member of First Baptist Church, Childersburg, will read this story sometime between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m.
He sleeps from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s a schedule Carpenter started keeping when his sons were still boys so he could be rested and ready for them when they got in from school. When his sons left home, he stuck with it. He spends his evenings talking with his wife, Gail, and watching TV.
Then Gail hooks Carpenter up to the computer and says goodnight, and that’s when he gets his work done, mainly through e-mail.
Maybe one of Carpenter’s students has a question about his criminal justice class. Maybe Gail wrote him a love letter. Maybe a writer wants to know what it’s like living with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
This is what it’s like:
He can’t wash the car or hug anyone. He can’t move. A nurse bathes and shaves him.
He can’t speak. Talking to his wife involves a blinking system, and she can kind of read his lips.
He can’t breathe on his own. A little suitcase-size machine breathes for him. He can’t smell or taste. He’s fed liquid meals straight into his stomach through a tube.
He can’t get out in the yard with his sons or grandsons and show them how to throw the kind of spiral that made him a star quarterback at Childersburg High School in 1970 or The Tackle that made him a legend at Auburn University in 1972.
After Bill Newton blocked two punts in the final minutes of that year’s Iron Bowl, David Langner ran them both in for touchdowns and Gardner Jett kicked the extra points, all Auburn had to do was hold off Alabama for one minute.
BOOM — the kickoff. BOOM — The Tackle. And the white Auburn jersey that made it was No. 41 — Lee Carpenter.
“Being in on that tackle, knowing now Alabama would have to go 80 yards in so little time against our defense, … was the most important tackle or performance for me,” said Carpenter, a defensive back for the Tigers from 1971 to 1974.
Auburn went on to win the game 17–16.
When his old teammates stop by the house, he can’t high-five any of them, but he can listen to them tell old stories. And he can listen to the birds up in the oaks, thanks to the sunroom they built for him with funds raised by the Auburn Football Letterman’s Club.
He can love the wife who rolls him out there with all of his heart, one of the few muscles that still works. And he can believe in the God who made it possible for him to do things like earn his master’s degree online, teach a distance-learning course for Central Alabama Community College with an optically controlled computer interface and make a little money for his family.
In other words, he can live.
“It’s just a way of life,” Gail said. “We’ve lived with it a lot longer than without it.”
Carpenter was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1986. He was playing golf. He hit the ball over the fence. When he went to climb it, his leg wouldn’t work. By 1991, Carpenter needed a ventilator to stay alive. At first, he wasn’t going to take it. He was just going to slip away.
“One night, when things were at a critical point and I was having difficulties breathing, we went to the hospital,” Carpenter said. “That night, the doctor said, ‘It’s time to make the decision.’ I said, ‘We have the will; everything is in writing,’ and I accepted my fate. After a few minutes, something came over me that told me our boys needed a dad, and I said, ‘Do the ventilator.’”
That means his grandchildren still have a grandfather, Gail still has a husband and his old teammates still have No. 41.
That’s the kind of bravery that impresses Ron Partain, minister of music at First, Childersburg.
“All I know is that if there was ever anyone who opted to make the very best out of what life brought to him, it was Lee,” Partain said. “Not only is he alive, he is thriving as much as possible and is contributing daily to the betterment of [others].”
Though he can no longer attend services, Carpenter said his heart will always be with the church he joined at the age of 6. “My faith has been a huge part of my life since I was just a little boy,” Carpenter said. “I don’t know why but from about 12 or 13, I have always felt that God had His hand on me and had a plan for me. For that reason, I’ve never really asked God, ‘Why me?’”
He credits his faith, family and friends for being able to handle and live with this disease.
“Honestly I don’t wear my faith or religion on my sleeve or browbeat people to believe what I do. … I’ve always preferred to spread God’s message of love and salvation by how I live my life,” Carpenter said. “Maybe that was His plan.”
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