How ALS wrecked Cassi & Tyler Tidwell's lives but showed love story with 'so much beauty'
Nights are the hardest for Cassi Tidwell.
For the past three years or so, nights have been tough because her husband, Tyler, was battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He had been a standout football player, first at Deer Creek High School, then at Navy. He had been a decorated and beloved Marine.
But the progressive, insidious neurological disease ate away at his body, leaving him unable to stand or eat or talk or move on his own.
Cassi would wake up every 15 minutes or so to make sure Tyler was OK.
If she wasn’t already awake.
“I would get frustrated with Tyler,” Cassi said, “and we’d argue and we’d fight because he wouldn’t be able to sleep and he’d keep me up.
“With three young kids and then his disease and not sleeping, you get agitated.”
She sighed.
“But I would give anything in the world to go back to not sleeping again, just so I could be able to take care of him or just have him here.”
Tyler died on Dec. 10. He was only 37. And now, nights are even more difficult for Cassi. It’s when their home in Edmond feels emptiest. It’s when she feels his absence most and misses him worst.
“I feel very alone,” she said.
But on a day we celebrate love, there is no greater love story than the one authored by Cassi and Tyler Tidwell. When they vowed to love each other through sickness and health, they had no idea sickness would upend every part of their lives. No idea it would wreck their world. No idea it would end this way.
That didn’t stop their love.
It revealed it.
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‘Life was wonderful. Then this happened.’
Tyler Tidwell and Cassi Stocknick met in Annapolis, Maryland.
She was born and raised there while he was there to play football and attend the Naval Academy. When they got married on Oct. 29, 2011, they had the ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, the first full wedding ever done where Navy plays home football games. A picture of Tyler and Cassi was displayed on the videoboards.
It felt like a fairytale for the girl from Annapolis.
“He was the absolute love of my life and my whole world until the kids came along,” Cassi said. “Then they became our world.”
Alexandria came first in 2016. A year later came Bobby. Then three years ago, Christian.
“We had the perfect marriage. We never fought. We never had any issues. We had three beautiful children,” Cassi said. “Life was wonderful.
“Then this happened.”
In late 2019, Tyler was diagnosed with ALS, and only a few months later, it had upended their lives so much the Tidwells decided they needed to be closer to Tyler’s parents in Edmond. They left their home in Maryland. They moved to Oklahoma.
Cassi’s mom relocated, too, and getting through the day required all hands on deck. Everyone had to help with Tyler and the kids, and while the grandparents did a lot, the biggest weight fell on Cassi.
She was the one who was always there.
She was the one everyone depended on.
Those closest to the Tidwells marveled at Cassi. Yes, they marveled at Tyler, too; he read 357 books over the past few years, emailed with friends and found ways to love on his kids even as his body gave out. But the way Cassi went all in caring for Tyler and the kids was inspiring.
“It’s more heroic than anything I saw in some of the worst battles in Afghanistan,” said Corey Mazza, one of Tyler’s Marine buddies. “There’s so much beauty in it.”
But there was destruction, too.
ALS blew apart her happy marriage, her wonderful world.
“We weren’t ready yet,” Cassi said. “But when are you ever ready for the person that you love to go?”
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‘Living life in fear every day’
Even as Cassi soldiered on, she knew everything would get worse. ALS has no cure and limited therapeutics, so its progress wouldn’t be stopped. It would eat at Tyler’s muscles, stealing the voluntary movements first but ultimately taking the involuntary ones. Blinking. Swallowing. Breathing.
Tyler’s biggest fear was not being able to breathe, and last fall, he started feeling like he was inching toward that reality.
“He was suffering so much on a daily basis,” Cassi said. “He was living life in fear every day.”
Tyler knew if he started coughing or choking, it could kill him.
“Every day he woke up, it was like a torture chamber basically,” Cassi said. “Just waiting for something bad to happen.”
But on the second Saturday of December, the day of one of the highlights of any Navy football alum’s calendar, the Army-Navy football game, Tyler told Cassi he felt bad. He’d felt that way before. He’d been confined to his bed for several months. But that day, he typed out a message on his eye-controlled communication device that he felt different than before.
“Something’s wrong,” Cassie remembers Tyler saying. “Something just doesn’t feel right.”
Cassi knew then — the end was near.
Family and friends rushed to the house, and those who couldn’t get there, Cassi called so they could say goodbye to Tyler.
Eventually, Cassi took the kids into the bedroom to see Tyler.
“And he just kept saying, ‘I don’t want to cry because if I cry, then I won’t be able to breathe,’” Cassi said.
As the day wore on, Cassi could tell Tyler was struggling more and more.
Then, his breathing stopped.
Cassi knew Tyler had taken his final breath, and in those moments, she looked around the bedroom. Tyler’s mom and dad were there, holding onto each other. Tyler’s brother and sister-in-law were there, doing the same.
“The person that’s supposed to be holding me,” Cassi said, “was just laying there, gone.”
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Keeping their love alive
Tyler died on that Saturday.
Cassi didn’t change the bedsheets until Wednesday.
“I know that sounds crazy,” she said, “but I just laid there with his blanket and his pillow. I just couldn’t … ”
She paused.
“It was something that I never thought I would do.”
Cassi felt the pain of Tyler’s death. The sadness. The grief. The despair. But she felt something else, too – guilt.
There were nights before Tyler died when Cassi would go to the living room after the kids were in bed. She would sit alone on the couch while he was in the bedroom. In the first few days after Tyler was gone, Cassi thought a lot about those times.
“I should have been in there with him,” she told herself. “I should have been holding his hand. I should have been there.
“Why wasn’t I in there?”
She felt the guilt of that — could she have done more, loved more? — and she knew it threatened to drag her down even more.
She had to remind herself why she would leave the bedroom for a while: “Because I was so tired at the end of the day. Because I’d been taking care of everybody for 12 or 13 hours, and I just needed a minute to unwind.”
Cassi also had to remind herself what Tyler told her the day he died.
“Everything’s gonna be OK,” he said.
“No, no, no,” she replied.
“You’re a great mother, and you’re gonna be OK,” he insisted. “I promise.”
Even as Cassi cared for Tyler, her biggest concern was the kids. They endured situations that were difficult. They saw things that were traumatic.
But every day, they also saw what true love looks like.
Their mom and dad showed them.
And now with Tyler gone, Cassi isn’t about to let that love die.
“Every day that I wake up and I look at my three kids,” she said, “I’m like, ‘I want to make it a great day. We’re happy to be alive. We’re healthy.’
“It really changes your perspective on life.”
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Want to help?
Some of Tyler Tidwell's buddies from the Marine Corps started a GoFundMe account to help the Oklahoma native as he battled ALS. The account remains active, in part to raise funds to help provide for his three children's schooling. Go to GoFundMe.com and search for "The Tidwell Family" to donate.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Navy football alum Tyler Tidwell, wife author love story in ALS battle
