SPOTLIGHT:Coach Brian Hsia

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ The Wonder Years, TV show.

Life is a precious moment of time, within our moments we create our own set of precious memories that we keep for our lifetime. Our friends, our family and all the acquaintances that we meet along the way, we remember and keep within our memory. Over time our memory starts to fade, but that comes with age. We rely on pictures to recollect that precious time we shared together or what we were doing at that precious time or event.

Now, imagine yourself waking up one morning to find that you do not know who your friends are, who your family members are and most importantly, who you are. These are the realities of what the Alzheimer’s disease does to a person. Usually, the disease affects elderly people, although there are more and more cases of this disease affecting the youth.

Many people will say that they run for fitness, for a goal and for stress relief. I do it for all those reasons and more. I run marathons to see the country, to experience the culture and indulge in the architecture within these cities. I take pictures of these moments to capture my journey of the 50 states across America.

I have been looking at my right side more often at the band that states, “A reason for hope.” This band means more to me this year than any other year that I have raised money for the Alzheimer’s Association.

My grandfather, the caretaker for my grandmother for the past 5 years that she had Alzheimer’s, had passed away. My family had not expected this, where all this time we had been worried about my grandmother who had been affected by the Alzheimer’s disease. Sad to say, but we had told my grandmother that her husband had passed away and her response was: “If he had to go, he had to go.” During the funeral, my grandmother had no reference or clue whose funeral she was attending.

Just recently, I visited my grandmother and my cousin’s recently married wife was there and she asked who she was. My cousin replied that it was his wife, my grandmother asked if she was married, he replied yes…and then she asked where my grandfather was…(read on)…

The disease is a horrible disease which I would never want anyone else’s family to endure.