Connecting with others to support cure for Multiple Sclerosis | Blake Dowling

I was having dinner at Cypress with my wife a few years ago. We like to sit at the bar at certain establishments and that former bar area was top of the list. A couple sat down next to us, and we started chatting.

We must have hung out for about three hours sipping wine, eating appetizers, and laughing loudly. Yes, we were those annoying people in the quaint restaurant talking five times louder than anyone else in the establishment; and we had a blast doing so. When I asked for our check, the bartender informed me that it had been taken care of already by the couple that was now walking out the door.

The gentleman just waved casually as he strolled on, he is one cool dude. That couple were two people I have always admired, thought fondly of and they are Palmer and Leslie Williams.

I first met them back in the late '80s early '90s. My pal Phillip Tunnicliff had invited another friend to join us for a jam session. Phillip and I playing guitar together sounded like 2 chainsaws cutting into glass while several kangaroos loudly screamed. His parents were very kind to host those shenanigans.

However, his friend joining us that day, Cameron Williams, could actually play the guitar quite well. This really put a wrench in our low talent jam, but for the big picture, he and I are still friends today and I met his parents shortly after that chainsaw session.

This fall I reconnected with Cameron and his parents at Capital City Country Club at an event for Multiple Sclerosis called the Together for a Cure MS Luncheon.

For over 25 years this group has been gathering to provide community, wellness, education, friendship, support and, yes, fundraising to battle MS. As the speakers shared their intense stories I was all in and teared up several times. Throughout the event one image also kept popping into my head and that was of my late aunt.

My aunt Janie Holman had MS, when she was a Florida State student in the 1970s it hit her hard. By the time I got to know her in the 1980s she spent her days in bed at Wesley Manor in Dothan, Alabama, and had very limited mobility and speech. Janie loved Elvis and her room was adorned with memorabilia that I would always gaze in awe at but as a little kid I did not understand the grim reality of her situation.

When my grandparents passed, I found a bunch of Janie’s college papers and her sense of humor was on point in those stories and essays. I felt like I finally got to know her from those discoveries. MS robbed her of so much and to see the advances made in treatments since those times is heartwarming for those battling the illness today, like Mrs. Williams.

At the luncheon one of the other speakers candidly spoke of deciding it was time to end her life, and her husband stopped her from taking a fatal dose of pills and today she fights on. For her to have the guts to tell that story is something I will never forget.

There are causes and events each month in our community, but this one hit differently. The togetherness, the will to persevere, the fellowship and commonality in that room was a game changer. There was something special about that group that gathered in Tallahassee on that day.

There were warriors in the room who banded together with their friends and family to say, no, you will not defeat us, we will win. It was powerful and personal for me. Perhaps watching my aunt for all those years devastated by the disease gave me additional clarity to this fight, perhaps it is because of the respect I have for Mrs. Williams.

Perhaps it is all the above. Thank you, Palmer, for the invitation to join in the fight against MS, thank you Leslie for being an inspiration and friend to those around you. This column is a message to the 1,000,000 Americans fighting MS that we will all keep pushing forward together.

Our goal is that no one will have to experience what my aunt did and that there will be medicines to put MS in the rear-view mirror once and for all one day soon.

Blake Dowling is the CEO of Aegis Business Technologies in Tallahassee, Florida. He can be reached at Dowlingb@aegisbiztech.com

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Connect with others to support cure for Multiple Sclerosis