Can you imagine knowing that at any given minute, you could go blind? You could walk to your bed at night and wake up paralyzed in the morning? Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the most unpredictable diseases that literally can steal critical bodily functions overnight, and you always know that this moment or the next could be the last time you see your favorite view or the last time you do a little dance in the kitchen to your favorite song while cooking.
Ronda Giangreco’s life changed overnight when she woke up one morning with half of her body numb. Thinking she had a stroke, doctors told her to take some aspirin and get to the doctor right away. But when the second half of her body went numb, they had to look at a different diagnosis. The diagnosis was Multiple Sclerosis. Even more heartbreaking, her husband’s mother had passed away from this same disease, and fear overtook them both as they realized that “this was it.” At age 53, Ronda was given a poor prognosis for mobility. Ronda asked herself, “If I only have a year left to walk, where do I want to walk to? What do I want to do?” The answer for Ronda was to cook.
Ronda Giangreco one Sunday during her year of hosting Italian feasts
She asked her husband how her mother coped with this disease. He said every Sunday, his big Italian family would get together for Sunday dinners. They would load his mother in her wheelchair into the car and go to his grandmother’s house for a family meal. They would eat and laugh and share stories and enjoy wine. It was something to look forward to every week and they made memories with every bite.
That’s what Ronda wanted to do. She had done cooking school twice in Italy, and she decided to try her best to cook an Italian meal every Sunday for one year. During this year, Ronda had a lesion that cause acute SEVERE pain attacks. She would be rushed to the hospital and be dosed with something that would sooth her screaming pain. This happened one Sunday before she had even made it to the store to shop for dinner that evening.
She told herself, “This is my own private Mt. Everest. Every week that I get dinner on the table, I am farther into triumphing over this disease’s prognosis.” And she did complete 52 meals every Sunday. She always had six guests, whomever was first to RSVP. Sometimes she asked neighbors she didn’t know. One time, she invited someone she met at the grocery store.
“It wasn’t the cooking or the food itself, it was bringing people together. It was breaking bread together. The first fundamental need we have and our first opportunity to be nurtured is around being fed. It’s our first opportunity to feel loved and cared for, and that tradition extends to a dinner table in our adult life.”
“The goal wasn’t to keep myself out of a wheel chair. It would be ridiculous to say I could cook my way out of this.” Ronda just wanted to live as whole-heartedly as she could one week at a time. “Hosting the dinner parties was something positive I could focus on. Choosing to create and live in each inspired moment as it was happening gave me something good out of something so bad. If I had set out with a goal beyond just living whole-heartedly through those 52 weeks of hosting Sunday dinners, it would have fallen so short of what I could have lived up to. A goal I could have imagined would have limited my potential. I never would have set the bar as high as it went. I just wanted to have some positive and good in all this craziness.”
As the weeks went by, even through her intense pain attacks, each week helped her take the focus off her disease and focus on the triumph.
Ronda didn’t have any expectations around what would come of that commitment she hoped to fulfill. She hosted her dinners to have those experiences in those moments, and that was enough. She didn’t even think beyond that commitment nor strategize what might result. Ronda’s desire to be inspired through cooking and hosting led to a life so happy and fulfilling that she wouldn’t have dared to dream so big with her diagnosis.
I asked Ronda what would have happened that year if she hadn’t set out to make those 52 dinners. “I think I would have given into it. When you get a disease that can be so debilitating and challenging, you get tremendous sympathy. It’s seductive. Nobody faults you for sitting on a couch and eating a tub of ice cream. Nobody expects anything of you. If I hadn’t expected anything of myself, I think I might have succumb to that seductive sympathy and the low bar that had been set for me.”
It wasn’t cooking that saved her life. “It was the inspiration that saved my life. I am lucky to be able to walk and cook while living with MS, and I am grateful to have been inspired to have allowed this disease to be a reason for me to rise instead of crumble.”
After her incredible feat of hosting 52 Sunday dinners, folks would hear her story and encourage her to share it. She wrote her first book, The Gathering Table – Defying Multiple Sclerosis With a Year of Pasta, Wine & Friends.
Ronda had always dreamed of writing a book. When she was twelve, she would dream of seeing the book she wrote displayed in a bookstore window the towering way you would expect in the movies. A creative collection of her books by the dozens, one with the cover prominent and one with the author portrait revealed. In high school, she was even voted “Most Likely to Write the Next Big American Novel.” As life moved on, she got a job, had kids, and lived a normal life. That dream got buried under that normal life that is expected of us.
It was raining torrentially the evening of her first book signing at her local bookstore. Even as she was on her way, she questioned, “Who would come out on an evening like this just to hear me?” As she and her husband approached the front door of the bookstore with March rain pounding the pavement, she saw it. She saw the book display she had always dreamed about. “It was like I was 12 again. I just stood there in this rainstorm and sobbed.” After taking the experience in and likely getting quite drenched in the process, she saw, beyond the book display, sixty eager readers waiting to welcome Ronda. Ronda, indeed, was now a real author.
It wasn’t an end, but just the beginning.
When Ronda was diagnosed with MS, she wanted to stop. If she was on a path from A to B, she didn’t want to be on that path. She didn’t want to move forward because what was she moving towards? “I never thought dreams or goals would ever be part of my life again. Boy, was I wrong!”
Ronda now has published her second book, A Dose of Devotion – How Couples Living with Multiple Sclerosis Keep Their Love Strong, co-authored by Jeanne Lassard. She has spoken all over the United States and realized dreams that would have never been fulfilled if she had never been diagnosed with MS.
The worst experience of her life is responsible for her fulfilling her greatest dreams. “Even if I woke up paralyzed tomorrow, I would say it was all worth it.”
“Don’t wait for life to shake you into pursuing your dreams. Don’t wait for a wake up call, because it may come too late. Live the inspired life today, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”
“I don’t know why I got lucky, but I feel a great responsibility to do everything I can to help others.”
Visit Ronda at www.thegatheringtable.net
Article © Elaina Marie 2015. All images © Ronda Giangreco 2015.
 Ronda Giangreco with Chef Michael Chiarello |
 Ronda Giangreco’s first book, The Gathering Table, featuring her amazing story of triumphing through her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis through an inspiring year of cooking for others.
|
 Ronda Giangreco is a gracious cook, accomplished author and keynote speaker |
