Wife’s Parting Gift to Husband: Bamboo Rod

Ellen Van Oss, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has always dreamed of going to Alaska.  Now, as cancer overtakes her body, she’s giving her husband a handmade bamboo rod to take on the trip they planned together. The rod’s maker, Ken Rongey, a doctor forced to retire after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, said what is special is “this setting of two people broken by diseases … who worked so hard to make the lives of others better.”