Introduction:
For many families, music is a pastime. For the Osmonds, it has always been a lifeline—a foundation built on harmony, faith, and the idea that joy shared is joy multiplied. That spirit was born early. “I began singing with my brother Alan when I was four years old,” he recalls. “For the next couple of decades, we literally sang side by side.”
Raised in a home where their mother adored music and their father loved to sing, the Osmond children were encouraged from the beginning to express themselves through melody. By the time he was eight years old, the Osmond Brothers Quartet had taken shape: Wayne at six, Merrill at four, and Jay at just two. Their shared purpose was simple yet powerful—maybe we can make someone happy.
But behind the bright lights and perfect harmonies, challenges were waiting.
In 1986, as the brothers toured the country performing their signature blend of country and pop, Alan began noticing subtle changes. His trumpet wasn’t as quick as before. He found himself tripping over nothing. After rounds of tests—MRIs, spinal taps—the diagnosis came: multiple sclerosis.
“It embarrassed me,” Alan admitted. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I felt like I was letting my brothers down.” But instead of surrendering, he chose a mantra that would define the next decades of his life: “I may have MS, but MS does not have me.”
The diagnosis didn’t affect only Alan. “When one person gets MS, the whole family gets MS,” his son remembers. As young boys, the siblings didn’t fully understand the gravity of the disease. But one message stayed with them: his body might have MS, but his spirit doesn’t—and it’s soaring.
Years later, on Christmas Eve 2005, the family faced heartbreak again. Alan’s son David began experiencing intense pain in his toes. The symptoms climbed upward—numbness, falls, tremors, failing eyesight—until he, too, received the devastating diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.
“I was in complete denial,” David shares. “My symptoms were so different from my dad’s.” And that is the cruel truth about MS—it never affects two people in the same way. As an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, it disrupts the body’s electrical signals, interfering with movement, sight, sensation, even breathing.
Yet amid uncertainty, the Osmond family discovered something deeper: hope.
A family friend once said, “It’s not the disease that gets you down. It’s the lack of hope.” And hope became their anchor. “Pain is inevitable,” David reflects. “But suffering is optional. There’s a future. There’s hope.”
Today, despite decades of battling MS, Alan’s spirit remains unshaken. “Thirty-two years of having it, and I’m still moving!” he says with a smile. Their message to the world is simple but profound: You are loved. You are special. You are not alone. Choose not to be bitter—choose to be better.
Through the hardest moments, their bond—father and son, teacher and student—has only deepened.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Pops.”