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I posted this last year... I don't think I've posted it again this year. I was going to, but got distracted and don't think I ever got around to it. So before we look at some old pictures, let's take a look at an old post (from last year)...
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As
I told you on Monday, I was asked a few weeks ago to provide a picture and a
few lines on why I walk to the Alzheimer’s Association for them to use in an
advertisement they were going to run in the Charleston City Paper. And like I
told you on Monday, this wasn’t as easy a thing to do as I thought it would be.
The picture was easy… I had a good team picture from last year and while my
cousin Susan won’t be joining us at the Walk this year, she did donate this
year so I had no problem including her. But the question of why I walk kind of
threw me… because I’d never really thought of why I was doing this. And let me
go ahead and say that they asked me why I walk, but I turned it into why my
team walks… so I spoke for the team without really asking any of them their
opinion, but hopefully they are fine with what I said. I feel I should also
tell you that the more I thought about it, the more I realized the hard part
might not be coming up with a few lines… the hard part might be coming up with
only a few lines. I was limited with what I could say to them due to space, but
there is no such limitation here. Therefore, today I would like to expand
somewhat on why I (and possibly my team) participate in the Walk to End
Alzheimer’s.
If
you go to enough weddings you’ll realize that 1 Corinthians 13 is used in
nearly all of them. It’s a great chapter and possibly one of the best parts of
any of Paul’s letters, but I fear that it is only thought of as a “wedding”
chapter. We read it at weddings and maybe dust it off for anniversaries, but
never really think of it at other times (or in ways not marriage related). By
the way, before I forget, I know different versions of the Bible have different
words, so for the purpose of this I am thinking of the NIV. Anyway, the whole
chapter is great… but one of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 Corinthians
13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of
these is love.” And so when I was asked to share why I walk and was having
trouble figuring it out… I decided to pray about it. The more I prayed and the
more I thought about it, the more I kept thinking of this verse. Maybe it’s
just because the Olympics have been going on, but I kept thinking love is the
main reason… but faith and hope are also on the medal stand. Know what I mean?
Just because Love gets the gold doesn’t mean Faith and Hope should be
forgotten… they are still important. And so that is where I started.
Faith.
As I told you before, this will be my 10th year participating in this Walk.
Back when I started, it was called the Memory Walk and at some point (it
probably took me a couple of years to notice) it changed to the Walk to End
Alzheimer’s. Ten years is a long time. It’s longer than I’ve held any one job.
It’s way longer than a lot of marriages. I don’t think you do something this
long for shits and giggles (as the kids say… not my kids, but your kids [with
their potty mouths]). Why am I still doing this? Because like George Michael, I
gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith (though I feel our faiths were for different
things). Yes, I have faith that this is making a difference. I have faith that
the money I raise matters and that maybe, just maybe, someone will see me doing
this and think “What’s all this Alzheimer’s stuff about?” and they will learn
about it and they will start focusing on it. I don’t know… maybe they will see
one of the 50 or so pictures I’ve posted here or on Facebook and like it and
talk about it at home and their children will hear it and decide they want to
grow up and be a doctor or scientist and years later they will figure out the
cure. That’s crazy, right? What are the odds? Well, Al Michaels once asked me
if I believed in miracles… and like Al Michaels I yelled “YES!” Maybe it is
crazy… hell, maybe I’m crazy, but I haven’t been doing this for this long for
nothing. I would love for this to be my last Walk. I would love for a cure to
be found before the Walk next year… but if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be back
next year doing it all over again.
Why
do I walk? Because I have hope that a cure will be found soon. Hope is a
powerful thing. It’s a good thing. A great example of this is Winston Churchill
in the early days of WWII when many around the world had lost hope and it
looked like Nazi Germany was going to conquer everyone. It’s easy to look back
now and think well of course Churchill said those things, the Allies crushed
Germany. But think back to May 13, 1940 when German forces were doing whatever
they wanted with little to no resistance… The US was still sitting on the
sidelines… and Churchill in his first speech as Prime Minister says,
“I
would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: I
have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an
ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of
struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to
wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength
that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed
in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. This is our policy. You ask,
what is our aim?
I
can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite
of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without
victory, there is no survival.”
A
lot of people were wanting to give up… and Churchill starts talking about
victory?!?! Less than a month later, after a defeat so bad that the fact that
they were able to rescue part of the army from Dunkirk was seen as a huge
victory, Churchill again gets on the radio and says,
“Even
though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may
fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we
shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we
shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may
be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we
shall never surrender.”
Again,
at this point in time it wasn’t a matter of if Germany would defeat Britain,
but when. If ever there was a time of “no hope” this was it… and there stood
Churchill figuratively (and quite possibly literally) shooting the bird at
Germany. Why is this important? Because it gave people hope. It let them know
that all was not lost. It’s easy when dealing with a disease like Alzheimer’s
that, so far, has no cure to lose hope. It’s easy to give up and think a cure
can’t be found. But I walk because I have not lost that hope. I walk because I
will not lose that hope. Hope, in a way, goes hand in hand with Faith. I know a
cure will be found. I have faith a cure will be found. My Hope is that it will
be found soon. But even if it isn’t found today or tomorrow or this year… I
will not lose hope that this next experimental drug will be the one. I have seen
people in clinical trials lose hope because the drug that was being tested
“failed”. What I wanted to tell them, but never had the nerve to do it is
“DON’T GIVE UP!” This is a short-term failure, but it still moves us one step
closer to a cure. We can now scratch that one off the list and move on to the
next theory. I go back to Winston Churchill (whose words I love reading almost
as much as I love reading Paul’s) and his quote that “Success is going from
failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” Jimmy V may have been talking
about fighting cancer when he said this but it’s true for Alzheimer’s, too…
Don’t give up… Don’t ever give up. It is this hope that a cure is right around
the corner that keeps me walking.
And
now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is
love. And so it is. Like the Dream Team in ’92, Katie Ledecky in the women’s
800-meter freestyle or Usain Bolt in a race… Love crushes the competition.
Don’t get me wrong… Faith and Hope are important. Like I said, they’re up there
on the medal stand. But they were always fighting for the Silver Medal. Love
had the Gold locked up before the competition even started. Love, you see, is
what keeps my faith strong. Love is what keeps me from losing hope. I have lived
what you could call a lucky life. I’ve been very fortunate for many reasons
(too many to talk about right now)… one of these is when I got a job working in
an office that focused on Alzheimer’s research. Here’s the thing, I wasn’t
looking for a job in Alzheimer’s research. I was just looking for a job (any
job) with this organization. It’s not that I had a bad job at the time. I
actually had a very good job, but it was in retail and I was ready to move away
from retail. So I decided I wanted to work at this other place and I started
applying for every job that looked interesting to me. It probably took about 5
or 6 months… along the way I had an interview or two here or there but nothing
ever came from it. Then one day I interviewed with a couple of ladies and
thought it went great. I waited a few days and then one of them sent me an
email letting me know that they really liked me… but I didn’t get the job. She
went on to tell me that she knew of a position opening up that she thought I
would be good for and that I should keep an eye out for it and apply. Well, a
few days later two very similar positions opened up so I applied for both of
them. A couple of weeks later I got a call asking me to come in for an
interview. To make a long story short, I was too embarrassed to ask which job I
was coming in to interview for… so it wasn’t until after I got the job that I
realized which one it was. (I found out years later the main reason I got the
job was that the lady who interviewed me had trouble hearing and of all the
people she interviewed for the job, I was the only one who spoke loudly and
clearly enough for her to hear and understand what was being said!). Anyway, I
was hired as a Fiscal Technician II for this group that did Alzheimer’s
research. Fiscal Tech… I was a numbers guy working with numbers… getting away
from people because people (especially people I don’t know) can bother me
(often through no real fault of their own). Well… my desk in this new job was
near the front of the office (by the waiting room). At times I was given the
task of sitting with Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So while their caregiver was taken back
and interviewed as part of the study... You see, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So were so
far along with Alzheimer’s that there was fear they may forget why they were
there and simply get up and leave. Sometimes I was sent to sit with them
because they had driven to our office on their own without their loved one
knowing about it. So my task was to sit and talk with them until their
caregiver could come pick them up. Do you understand how hard that is to do for
someone who can’t stand talking to strangers?! For some reason, though, I
seemed to be good at it. I can’t explain it… fact is I decided early on not to
question it… I just accepted it. These were nice people, to me at least. I know
odds are some of them were probably a-holes at some time in their life, but as
we sat and talked, they were nice people. They just wanted to tell me about
their children or grandchildren or brothers and sisters or parents and grandparents.
They would talk about long-gone relatives as if they had just seen them and
would get frustrated when they had trouble remembering the names of some of
their closest friends… but all in all they were just happy to have someone to
talk to. I usually wouldn’t say much (I didn’t really trust myself to say the
right thing… and by that, I mean I was scared I’d say something like: “I’ve got
a brother who didn’t talk for the first 22 years of his life. No kidding… when
I found out he was engaged I said ‘B-llsh!t… he’s never said that many words
[will you marry me] to one person at one time in his whole life!’” I still
think that would have gotten me a laugh, but I didn’t think it was appropriate
for some reason) just enough to keep them happy and talking. If push came to
shove, I would pull out a picture of Mary Ruth (and later Susie). She was a
cute baby and people in general seem to like looking at pictures of cute
babies. Mind you, I wasn’t called on to do this a ton of times, but I did it
enough that I was able to see the love these people had for their friends and
family and the love their caregivers had for them. Along the way I guess I
developed a love for them as well. As I’ve said before, I’ve lived a lucky life
and part of that (which I hope to talk about another day) is that I had a
chance to know 3 of my 4 grandparents. Not only that, but I loved them all. A
lot of people, I’ve found out over the years, never knew any of their
grandparents. So when I see a person with Alzheimer’s I not only think about
them and their spouse and their children… I also think about their
grandchildren. My God… What would my life be like now if I hadn’t had a chance
to hear Da’s stories when I was growing up? What about all of the times me and
Louis spent the night with Granny (at Aunt Sister’s house and later at her
apartment)? Where would I be now if I hadn’t been lucky enough to spend time
with MaMa? Are you kidding me? I can’t even think about it. My life without
them in it would be completely different (and not in a good way). So I walk so
that other grandchildren will have a chance to know their grandparents the way
I got to know mine.
Sadly, I know people with
this disease. I know people who are caring for loved ones with this disease or
have lost loved ones to this disease. So I walk for the people I love. Those
with Alzheimer’s and their spouses, siblings, cousins, children, grandchildren
and, of course, their friends who love them like family. Faith, Hope and Love…
These, my friends, are why I walk.
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