Spotlight - Nancy Israel

Each week we will be picking members to spotlight to tell their Alzheimer's story and why they are running in this year's New York City marathon. Check in each day for new updates on who will be spotlighted and get to know your teammates...(each person is picked at random)

The other night I had a strange dream about my little sister, Sue. We were somewhere together among strangers, and I had to explain to them that she couldn't understand what they were talking about because she couldn't remember anything. When I turned around, I had lost her and felt like I had forgotten about her. Then finally I found her, and she was dressed perfectly in a strange costume, like one of those foreign dolls in native costume  your parents bring back  when they go on a long trip without you.

I was so amazed to see her this way, perfectly groomed and dressed, and in awe that she had done it by herself.  I was proud of her. But then I realized she was someone I didn't really recognize, a stranger...

It's hard to talk about losing your sister, the person you shared a room with, shared fears and secrets with as a child, came of age with, smoked pot and talked about boyfriends, cried and laughed over silly things, griped about our parents, journeyed to foreign places, eventually ended up in the same college. Then moved apart and then moved together to a new city, started careers, then moved apart again. Then celebrated marriages, the birth of our children.

And although I remember so much joy, happiness, tears and laughter, these days mostly I feel robbed. But more than that I feel how much she was robbed.  Her oldest daughter just graduated high school and went to college.  Her youngest just made the high school volleyball team. And her sweet and adoring husband now struggles to re imagine his life, so much of which is still ahead of him, without letting her go.

This isn't the way we all thought it would be.  And when Sue learned she had Alzheimer's disease, she said to me, I will not see my daughters marry, and I will die from this disease.  How I wish I could have said that would not happen,  that there was hope, a cure on the horizon. But I know its too late for Sue.

Someday it won't be too late for someone else in our family who inherits this insidious disease, they will not suffer the inevitable decline, and lose the promise they saw in the eyes of those they loved.

 

Together we run, we run to change the future in the names of those we love and have lost or are losing.

I am proud to be a member of the Athletes to End Alzheimer's.  I will run those crazy 26.2 miles in honor of my little sister,  sweet Sue. I will join my team, united in our cause to find a cure, to end the  suffering, the loss and the agony that too many endure.