"I walk because I’ve helplessly watched my mom follow the path of Alzheimer’s that I read about
many years ago - and there has been no effective treatment, cure or prevention since Alzheimer’s
was discovered over 100 years ago. I walk because instead of watching me walk down the aisle
at my wedding, my mom was home - peaceful, but unaware that her daughter was getting
married, or maybe even that she has a daughter. I walk because she stares right into the
beautiful blue eyes of her granddaughter, and has no idea those eyes come from her. I walk
for awareness, funding, research, and a cure. And because it’s what she would’ve done."
-Melissa Klaeb
"I walk for my beautiful wife Lois Kelley. She was an unconditionally loving wife,
angelic mother,and superstar grandmother that we lost too soon. I walk for my family
- my daughter, my son, and my three grandchildren. I walk to educate everyone that
this is not just an older person's disease. Lois was diagnosed at just 55,
and the disease rapidly progressed, taking her from us too soon."
- John Kelley
"I walk for my mom who I lost to early on-set Alzheimer's. She was so young and missed out on so much life.
I will walk with my kids, husband and whoever wishes to join my team so we can make a difference
in future generations and so that all who have died, did not die in vain. I miss mom daily. Because
she and others have lost their voices, ours needs to get louder to find what can be done to ultimately
rid this disease. It is a very alone feeling when your loved one has lost her voice."
- Judi Griffin
"My husband Rod was until recently an academic. He earned his PhD in Comparative Religion, Literature,
and Philosophy in 1973 and taught 83 different courses—not classes, but courses—over the
duration of his career. He served for over two decades as the dean of a university library. His entire
life had been based on his ability to think. In fact, it was he who first diagnosed his own cognitive
decline when he noticed that he could no longer effectively carry on research due to his inability
to hold the content of so much as a single sentence in his mind after reading it—repeatedly. Much of
who we are as human beings is the result of our accumulated memories. Remove our memories,
and we revert eventually to the tabula rasa we were at birth. Alzheimer’s disease, then, gradually
erases an individual’s identity. What more cruel fate can one suffer?
Here we are at our first Walk4ALZ at Angels Stadium on November 10, 2018–the first anniversary of Rod’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis."
- Melanie Vliet
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