SPIRIT & SALTWATER
Four-and-a-half years ago, after he was diagnosed with ALS, Lance Garms began living his life based upon a new calculus.
“I started this motto: Always say yes. Even if I’m tired, say yes.” Garms, 51, is gazing out across the glimmering expanse of the Chesapeake Bay’s Potomac River on a bluebird spring day. He’s seated in his wheelchair in the dance-floor-sized cockpit of a specialized 46-foot Chesapeake deadrise called Redeemer, surrounded by a group of lively friends and his two daughters, all of whom stumbled out of bed at o-dark-thirty to drive two hours south of Annapolis to meet the boat on time.
Ostensibly, they’re all here to chase rockfish—that’s the tangible part of this day and this boat’s mission. But what they, and this boat, are really here for is the intangible—an opportunity to contemplate the Bay’s beauty, a moment for the spirit to heal, a chance for a day filled with “yes” to bring solace to a life bound by loss. ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, slowly and inexorably robbing a person of the ability to control muscle function, even to the point of
