News & Stories
Blu Sanders on Love, Loss, and “The Forty One: a story of hope and a car”
Finding Meaning in the Face of ALS
Singer-songwriter Blu Sanders grew up in El Paso, Texas — on the edge of the border, where soccer was religion and the desert horizon stretched wide. He eventually made his way to Nashville, chasing his songwriting dreams and carving out a life as a musician, photographer, and storyteller. But in 2010, life pulled him home: his father had been diagnosed with ALS, and Blu left behind his touring schedule to step into the role of caretaker.
The Forty One: a story of hope and a car is the product of that journey. The book — part memoir, part layman’s car manual — tells the story of a son racing to fix an old Chevy for his father, who was battling the disease. What begins as a mechanical project becomes a meditation on love, legacy, and loss — and a deeply human reflection on what it means to care for someone as their body slowly gives way to the realities of a disease that steals movement, speech, and independence, but never spirit.
We sat down with Blu for National Book Month to talk about how the book came to be, what that car came to mean, and how humor, heartbreak, and the simple act of “doing” helped him process the experience of watching ALS reshape his world.
When Blu first began writing, it wasn’t with the intention of publishing a book. “Honestly, I don’t know that I had a perfect answer at first,” he admits. “I was a songwriter back then — I had a publishing deal in Nashville and storytelling was part of my job. When I came home, though, I didn’t always have the energy to pick up a guitar. Writing the book became another way to satisfy that creative urge to tell stories.”
What started as a side project became something much deeper — a tribute, a record, and a release. “I knew I wanted to document that time in my life — not just the car or the illness, but everything around it,” he says. “Now, looking back, I’m so grateful I did. I don’t have any other period of my life so vividly recorded. It’s therapeutic, it’s a tribute, and it’s something tangible from a time that was anything but.”
At the heart of The Forty One is the restoration of that old Chevy — a symbolic act of love and perseverance against the backdrop of ALS, a disease that relentlessly took from his father even as it brought the two of them closer. “There’s definitely a kind of symbolism,” Blu reflects. “My dad’s health was declining while the car was slowly coming back to life. It became this parallel story. On the surface, it was just a son trying to do something for his dad. I wasn’t a car guy; I didn’t know what I was doing. But my dad came from a generation that worked with their hands — they built things, fixed things. I think watching me tinker on that car gave him pride.”
He pauses before adding, “I did get it running, but he passed before I finished it. In the end, I put his ashes in the passenger seat and took him for a ride. It wasn’t the ending I imagined, but it was still a ride — in its own way, it felt right.”
Writing, like fixing the car, became a form of therapy during a time when his father’s disease left so much out of his control. “I’ve never been a journal guy or a therapy guy,” Blu admits. “But during that time, I wrote something almost every day — even just a few lines about what we did, what was said. Putting those thoughts on paper helped release some of the emotional pressure. When I go back and read those notes now, I can see how much of it was my way of understanding grief in real time.”
His creative background helped him shape the story with honesty and rhythm. “A song is three minutes long — you’ve got verses, a chorus, maybe a bridge, and you fight for every word. A book is like that, just multiplied a thousand times. But it all comes from the same creative well.” He credits a friend’s advice for helping him begin: “He told me, ‘Just write.’ I wanted a roadmap — five steps to writing a book — but he said, ‘Nope. Just start.’ Eventually, it grows so big you can’t even recognize where it began. It really did feel like writing a long song.”
The process wasn’t without difficult emotions — something every caregiver in our ALS community can understand. “I was warned by a friend that anger would show up, and I didn’t believe it,” Blu recalls. “But it did — over the dumbest things. There’s a scene in the book where I step on my dad’s foot, he yells, I yell back, and it spirals. Those moments were painful but honest. My dad couldn’t move, couldn’t fight back, and here I was getting frustrated. He was such a calm, Zen kind of guy — he could say so much without saying anything. I learned a lot about myself through those moments — that I’m emotional, dramatic, human.”
Through it all, humor became a survival tool. “My dad set that tone,” Blu says. “He was matter-of-fact and accepting in a way that amazed me. Once we acknowledged the reality of ALS, it allowed us to live as normally as possible. His progression was slow at first, so we got to travel — we took road trips, borrowed an RV, saw the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. And my dad was funny. He’d joke about his feeding tube like it was fine dining. You need that humor. ALS is such a cruel disease — without laughter, I don’t think you survive the reality of it.”
When asked what he hopes readers take away from The Forty One, Blu doesn’t hesitate. “I hope they take away the importance of showing up — for family, for the people you love, for anyone who needs help. You don’t always get to choose what life gives you, but you do get to choose how you respond.”
He adds, “I don’t like being praised for caregiving — it wasn’t heroic, it was just what needed to be done. But it did teach me that giving to others gives something back to you, too. If there’s one thing readers remember, I hope it’s that: serving others serves yourself. That’s something I really believe.”
And when he’s not writing, making music, or behind a camera, Blu still finds peace in the game that shaped his youth. “Soccer. It has always been what grounds me,” he says with a grin. “Growing up in El Paso, we played across the border. It’s a constant thread through my life. Now, I go to Nashville SC games regularly, follow friends’ teams, stay connected. After years on the road missing out, it feels like a small joy I get to reclaim. Soccer’s my habit, my ritual — it’s fun, grounding, and full of connection.”
In The Forty One: a story of hope and a car, Blu Sanders captures the profound intersection of creativity, caregiving, and courage. His story is not just about rebuilding a car — it’s about rebuilding a life in the shadow of ALS, about finding grace in motion, laughter in loss, and love that endures long after the engine stops. You can find The Forty One: a story of hope and a car by clicking here, and you can learn more about Blu, his songwriting and other projects by visiting his website at blusanders.com