On Mondays we bring you our series: This I Believe.

For thirty years, Catherine Royce of Dore Chester Massachusetts was a dancer. 3 years ago at the age of 55, she was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease (肌萎缩性侧索硬化症). She has developed her belief as she has lost control of her own body. Here's our series curator (馆长，主任), independent producer Jay Allison.

Catherine Royce wanted to read her essay aloud while her voice was still strong. She says that these days she's, "engaged in active contemplation of the roll death place in a full and joyful life." And that her statement of belief came naturally from that meditation . Here is Catherine Royce with her essay for This I Believe.

I believe that I always have a choice. No matter what I'm doing, no matter what is happening to me, I always have a choice.

I have spent my life typing on a keyboard, but now, I can no longer use my hands. Every day I sit at my computer, speaking words into a microphone instead of typing. In 2003 I was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. Over time this disease will weaken and finally destroy every significant muscle in my body. Ultimately I will be unable to move, to speak and finally, to breathe.

Already I'm largely dependent upon others, so every day I review my choices. Living with ALS seems a bit like going into the witness protection program. Everything I have ever known about myself --How I look, how I act, how I interact with the world--is rapidly and radically changing. And yet with each change, I still have choice. When I could no longer type with my hands, I knew I could give up writing entirely or I could go through the arduous process of learning to use voice recognition software. I'm not a young woman. This took real work. Interestingly, I write more now than ever. Every day I choose not only how I will live but if I'll live.

I have no particular religious mandate that forbids contemplating a shorter life, an action that would deny this disease as the ultimate expression.

But this is where my belief in choice truly finds its power. I can choose to see ALS as nothing more than a death sentence. Or, I can choose to see it as an invitation-- an opportunity to learn who I truly am. Even people in the witness protection program must take with them, fundamental aspects of themselves which can never change.
What are these aspects for me? So far, I have discovered many unique things, but one stands out above the rest.

I have discovered in myself an ability to recognize, give and receive caring in a way far deeper than anything in my life before.

I have always been an intensely private and independent person. But now I have allowed a wide circle of family and friends into the most intimate parts of my life.

Previously I would have found such a prospect appalling. I would have assumed that living with ALS meant a life of hardship and isolation.

Instead, because I believe that I always have a choice, I open myself to other possibilities. And now the very thing that it first seems so abhorrent has graced my life with unaccustomed sweetness.

It was always there, only now I have chosen to see it.

Catherine Royce with her essay for This I Believe. Royce continues to "write" almost everyday, using her microphone and voice recognition software.

If you would like to contribute a statement of belief to our series, visit our website, npr.org. For This I Believe. I'm Jay Allison.

Next Monday, on All Things Considered, a This I Believe essay from Pakistani American Yasore Blue.

Support for This I Believe comes from Copelly University. 


   meditation  n.沉思，冥想
   arduous  a.费劲的，险峻的
   mandate n.训令
   appalling  a.令人震惊的
   abhorrent a.可恶的，格格不入
   grace...with  给……增添光彩
  
(The material is from putclub.com.)