would you believe me if I told you that
just three letters could dramatically
change your life that just three letters
could redefine the way you look at
everything the way you make decisions
your perceptions of right and wrong the
way that you define what’s important in
life that just three letters could be
the reason for your deepest weakness and
your strongest strengths your deepest
sorrows and your purest joy that just
three letters could destroy you
completely only to be the main reason
that you persevere that they could break
you down to the bone only to make you
more whole than you ever thought
possible what if I told you that just
three letters a-l-s have done all of
these things and more in my life
last year my dad was diagnosed with ALS
many of you may know this disease from
the ice bucket challenge or perhaps is
from Stephen Hawking who suffered from
it as well how many of you actually
see that’s incredible thank you so much
als is a neurodegenerative disease that
affects the motor neurons in the body
making the body unable to walk talk move
chew or swallow and even breathe on its
own it’s a completely debilitating
disease and those affected by it become
prisoners in their own bodies spectators
in their own lives but they still have
their minds and
senses intact so they can still feel
pain and they still feel emotions but
they can’t cry out for help and they
feel urges to itch but they can’t
scratch it can you imagine having an
every day since my dad was diagnosed has
been a challenge for me and my family
watching my own father deteriorating in
front of my eyes and not being able to
do anything not being able to stop the
pain has been unbearable last year my
dad was on top of the world he was a
dentist and a self-made entrepreneur and
owned nine dental practices he was a
husband a beautiful husband and a father
that any child could be would be blessed
to have and this diagnosis made him even
more special but it impacted him in ways
that he could have never expected the
worst part however has been the loss of
his speech ever since he lost his speech
I’ve I’ve never thought that I’d missed
so badly the sound of my own father’s
voice telling me that he loves me
instead of one synthesized by a
communication device every day is a gift
and every day it seems that my father
had lost more and more functions become
more weak and more weak it seemed as if
his muscles were eroding away like sand
by the shore ALS impacts 2 out of every
100,000 people
it is so rare so when we received this
diagnosis we were blindsided
we couldn’t comprehend how something so
rare and so terrible to happen to our
family in
before we got a diagnosis we called ALS
the big bad wolf because saying those
three letters out loud was so scary and
we thought just by saying them we could
manifest them in our lives it was
something like saying Voldemort or
Bloody Mary we were so afraid of the
outcome and ever since then we’ve
learned to live with it but it still
hasn’t been the same and no matter how
much we denied it no matter how the
amount of sticks or bricks or straw that
we stacked up against it
the big bad wolf ALS blew our house down
leaving us utterly devastated ever since
my dad was diagnosed I’ve still been at
school I’m still taking tests doing
assignments I’ve still had to be
balanced my school life and my home life
and being there for my dad but it also
served as a sort of denial for me being
at school and walking the halls
pretending like nothing was happening
like I wasn’t that I was okay and I was
normal because first of all I had to
because nobody at my school knew what
was happening in my family but it was
not just pretending for them it was
pretending for myself as well and all
this changed when my dad decided to
reveal his diagnosis to the world and
with it my world and I was completely
blindsided school was not an escape
anymore it wasn’t a chance for me to get
some normalcy it was an extension of
what was happening at home and so from
that point onwards I took some time off
of school to spend with my father I we
went and traveled for treatment and at
that point reality struck me like a
wrecking ball square in the gut and I
couldn’t breathe and all the emotions
that I had kept bottled up and buried
deep inside of me for months
the feelings of fear uncertainty the
anger the stress the sadness
the feelings of insufficiency of guilts
all of it came rushing in and surging
out all at once and it bombarded me out
of nowhere I was overwhelmed to the
point where I went into a sort of
emotional paralysis for a week I
couldn’t get out of bed I bawled my eyes
out and wallowed my heart out but what I
realized was that every moment I spent
wallowing about an uncertain ambiguous
future
I was not spending those moments with my
dad who was still here and I decided I
was going to call myself out of this
hole but I didn’t know how I had gotten
too deep but then I realized that every
time I had hit a crossroads before every
time I didn’t know what to do or I was
struggling I’d always go to my dad and
he always knew what to say to me to make
me feel better and to tell me what to do
and this time was not any different my
dad was still here to give me guidance
I’ll be it through a mechanical voice so
I went to him I laid on his lap and I
cried on his shoulder and I told him
everything that I was going through and
as every other time he knew exactly what
to say to me and what he said that night
I will never forget he told me that my
love was pure and strong and that it’s
more than anything else had the power to
heal him and so at that point I realized
I was over complicating everything this
was simple all that I had to do was love
my dad which I already did I just kept
it inside so from that point I over
flowed with love I loved him and I spent
time with him and what I realized was
that this love this all-encompassing
love was just as healing
for me as it was for him I guess it is
true what the Beatles say all you really
need is love so after that I use this
love as my engine as I tried to navigate
what my impact would be in the world of
ALS and that’s when I created a 501 3 C
foundation called the Lal JLS Foundation
I decided that I would use this newfound
passion for ALS for finding a cure and
treatment for ALS which right now there
is no effective treatment or cure to
bring hope to other ALS patients like my
dad so our foundation is guided towards
bringing hope raising awareness and
conducting research to find treatment
and from there I started a Day of
Silence campaign at my school we’re in
over 500 students practice silence for
an entire day just to raise awareness
for ALS and I can tell you it’s very
difficult to get high school students to
be quiet for a whole day but it was 71
percent of my high school and that day I
realized how many people care about
things if you just give them the
opportunity to and from there I realized
that fire can either burn you or ignite
you and in this case we have chosen to
let it ignite us true we won’t get out
unscratched that this this definitely
had an impact on my family my mother who
doesn’t get any sleep who runs around in
a thousand different directions has
still found a way to use her functional
medicine background to connect dots in
ways that we could have never expected
to find treatments that she pulls out of
the sky it’s she is running on some sort
of energy I don’t even know but then my
brother who is 15 years old
who has become a nutrition and food
expert in neurological diseases 15 and
my dad my dad who has been a beacon of
strength who has kept our family
together who is the epitome of smiling
through the pain I mean look at that
smile I think if he can smile like that
in the midst of everything that he’s
going through why can’t we why can’t we
smile why can’t we find reasons to love
people immensely to smile genuinely if
he can find reasons to be grateful in
the midst of everything that he’s lost
why can’t we if he can find reasons to
keep putting one foot in front of the
other when he literally can’t walk why
can’t we in life I believe that you do
not choose your mission your mission
chooses you and we have decided to take
this as a mission as something gifted to
us to do to make an impact on the world
and yes it’s okay that sometimes you
take it to heart and you wallow a bit
but life is not defined by the moments
of weakness it’s defined by your ability
to move forward from weakness to get
back up despite every bone in your body
telling you not to and that is how you
turn tragedy into transformation thank
you [Applause]
just three letters could dramatically
change your life that just three letters
could redefine the way you look at
everything the way you make decisions
your perceptions of right and wrong the
way that you define what’s important in
life that just three letters could be
the reason for your deepest weakness and
your strongest strengths your deepest
sorrows and your purest joy that just
three letters could destroy you
completely only to be the main reason
that you persevere that they could break
you down to the bone only to make you
more whole than you ever thought
possible what if I told you that just
three letters a-l-s have done all of
these things and more in my life
last year my dad was diagnosed with ALS
many of you may know this disease from
the ice bucket challenge or perhaps is
from Stephen Hawking who suffered from
it as well how many of you actually
see that’s incredible thank you so much
als is a neurodegenerative disease that
affects the motor neurons in the body
making the body unable to walk talk move
chew or swallow and even breathe on its
own it’s a completely debilitating
disease and those affected by it become
prisoners in their own bodies spectators
in their own lives but they still have
their minds and
senses intact so they can still feel
pain and they still feel emotions but
they can’t cry out for help and they
feel urges to itch but they can’t
scratch it can you imagine having an
every day since my dad was diagnosed has
been a challenge for me and my family
watching my own father deteriorating in
front of my eyes and not being able to
do anything not being able to stop the
pain has been unbearable last year my
dad was on top of the world he was a
dentist and a self-made entrepreneur and
owned nine dental practices he was a
husband a beautiful husband and a father
that any child could be would be blessed
to have and this diagnosis made him even
more special but it impacted him in ways
that he could have never expected the
worst part however has been the loss of
his speech ever since he lost his speech
I’ve I’ve never thought that I’d missed
so badly the sound of my own father’s
voice telling me that he loves me
instead of one synthesized by a
communication device every day is a gift
and every day it seems that my father
had lost more and more functions become
more weak and more weak it seemed as if
his muscles were eroding away like sand
by the shore ALS impacts 2 out of every
100,000 people
it is so rare so when we received this
diagnosis we were blindsided
we couldn’t comprehend how something so
rare and so terrible to happen to our
family in
before we got a diagnosis we called ALS
the big bad wolf because saying those
three letters out loud was so scary and
we thought just by saying them we could
manifest them in our lives it was
something like saying Voldemort or
Bloody Mary we were so afraid of the
outcome and ever since then we’ve
learned to live with it but it still
hasn’t been the same and no matter how
much we denied it no matter how the
amount of sticks or bricks or straw that
we stacked up against it
the big bad wolf ALS blew our house down
leaving us utterly devastated ever since
my dad was diagnosed I’ve still been at
school I’m still taking tests doing
assignments I’ve still had to be
balanced my school life and my home life
and being there for my dad but it also
served as a sort of denial for me being
at school and walking the halls
pretending like nothing was happening
like I wasn’t that I was okay and I was
normal because first of all I had to
because nobody at my school knew what
was happening in my family but it was
not just pretending for them it was
pretending for myself as well and all
this changed when my dad decided to
reveal his diagnosis to the world and
with it my world and I was completely
blindsided school was not an escape
anymore it wasn’t a chance for me to get
some normalcy it was an extension of
what was happening at home and so from
that point onwards I took some time off
of school to spend with my father I we
went and traveled for treatment and at
that point reality struck me like a
wrecking ball square in the gut and I
couldn’t breathe and all the emotions
that I had kept bottled up and buried
deep inside of me for months
the feelings of fear uncertainty the
anger the stress the sadness
the feelings of insufficiency of guilts
all of it came rushing in and surging
out all at once and it bombarded me out
of nowhere I was overwhelmed to the
point where I went into a sort of
emotional paralysis for a week I
couldn’t get out of bed I bawled my eyes
out and wallowed my heart out but what I
realized was that every moment I spent
wallowing about an uncertain ambiguous
future
I was not spending those moments with my
dad who was still here and I decided I
was going to call myself out of this
hole but I didn’t know how I had gotten
too deep but then I realized that every
time I had hit a crossroads before every
time I didn’t know what to do or I was
struggling I’d always go to my dad and
he always knew what to say to me to make
me feel better and to tell me what to do
and this time was not any different my
dad was still here to give me guidance
I’ll be it through a mechanical voice so
I went to him I laid on his lap and I
cried on his shoulder and I told him
everything that I was going through and
as every other time he knew exactly what
to say to me and what he said that night
I will never forget he told me that my
love was pure and strong and that it’s
more than anything else had the power to
heal him and so at that point I realized
I was over complicating everything this
was simple all that I had to do was love
my dad which I already did I just kept
it inside so from that point I over
flowed with love I loved him and I spent
time with him and what I realized was
that this love this all-encompassing
love was just as healing
for me as it was for him I guess it is
true what the Beatles say all you really
need is love so after that I use this
love as my engine as I tried to navigate
what my impact would be in the world of
ALS and that’s when I created a 501 3 C
foundation called the Lal JLS Foundation
I decided that I would use this newfound
passion for ALS for finding a cure and
treatment for ALS which right now there
is no effective treatment or cure to
bring hope to other ALS patients like my
dad so our foundation is guided towards
bringing hope raising awareness and
conducting research to find treatment
and from there I started a Day of
Silence campaign at my school we’re in
over 500 students practice silence for
an entire day just to raise awareness
for ALS and I can tell you it’s very
difficult to get high school students to
be quiet for a whole day but it was 71
percent of my high school and that day I
realized how many people care about
things if you just give them the
opportunity to and from there I realized
that fire can either burn you or ignite
you and in this case we have chosen to
let it ignite us true we won’t get out
unscratched that this this definitely
had an impact on my family my mother who
doesn’t get any sleep who runs around in
a thousand different directions has
still found a way to use her functional
medicine background to connect dots in
ways that we could have never expected
to find treatments that she pulls out of
the sky it’s she is running on some sort
of energy I don’t even know but then my
brother who is 15 years old
who has become a nutrition and food
expert in neurological diseases 15 and
my dad my dad who has been a beacon of
strength who has kept our family
together who is the epitome of smiling
through the pain I mean look at that
smile I think if he can smile like that
in the midst of everything that he’s
going through why can’t we why can’t we
smile why can’t we find reasons to love
people immensely to smile genuinely if
he can find reasons to be grateful in
the midst of everything that he’s lost
why can’t we if he can find reasons to
keep putting one foot in front of the
other when he literally can’t walk why
can’t we in life I believe that you do
not choose your mission your mission
chooses you and we have decided to take
this as a mission as something gifted to
us to do to make an impact on the world
and yes it’s okay that sometimes you
take it to heart and you wallow a bit
but life is not defined by the moments
of weakness it’s defined by your ability
to move forward from weakness to get
back up despite every bone in your body
telling you not to and that is how you
turn tragedy into transformation thank
you [Applause]
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