Race for Your Memories 5K

As you may remember I am running my first 5K this month. I am very excited and have been working hard over the last 6 weeks to be ready. I have been debating if I should do this post or not, but after a little encouragement I decided to give it a try.


Basically I am asking for donations – if you can. The race I am running is to raise money for the Alzheimer’s association. My goal is to raise 100 dollars and as I have only raised 20 dollars so far I am really short. So if you can spare 5 bucks and this group is important to you please consider sponsoring me for this race. Believe me, I understand if you can’t as I am sure you all get hit up many times through out the year for donations, but if you can I would really appreciate it! You can get to my homepage and donate here.

As someone who has seen the effects of Alzheimer’s on not only the patient but the whole family, this association is very important to me. My grandmother suffered for many years – for how long we really don’t know. When I was in grade school we had to put her in a nursing home for her own safety. It was very hard. I know my dad hated doing it, but we had no choice at the time. He went from being the youngest son to being the parent almost over night – well honestly he had been the parent for awhile, but not to the same degree.

For close to 18 years he watched over his mother – even when she no longer knew his name (which unfortunately was very quickly). He made sure someone came in to do her hair and nails professionally - even during the last few years when she had no idea what was going on around her. He went to monthly caretaker meetings with the doctors/staff and researched what decisions would have to be made in the end. He did this with no help from his siblings (or to my regret myself). He was so strong, but I know he and I worry about going through this ourselves. Because no matter how hard it was to see your grandmother cry and beg you to take her home (she thought I was her mother) I am sure it was much harder to think that you were being abandoned in a strange place by your mother. Losing yourself would be one of the hardest things I can imagine going through and that is why I am doing the “Race for Your Memories”.