To the editor:
I was unwrapping a Tootsie Roll -- my birthday treat for my fellow first-graders -- when she appeared at the classroom door. "These are Brenda's to share, too," she said, handing Mrs. Duntz a tray of frosted, heart-shaped sugar cookies. She was gone before I could say thank you. The boy next to me asked if that was my mom. "She's pretty," he said, "and pretty nice." I nodded, flush with pride.
I re-experienced that 7-year-old's glow last month at the 25th Annual Alzheimer's Advocacy Forum, when the hotel elevator door opened and David Hyde Pierce boarded. The well-known actor, lesser-known as an anti-Alzheimer's activist, proclaimed, "What a lovely button!" as he pointed to my pin featuring Mom's 1957 engagement photo. "Your mother is incredibly beautiful."
My sisters and I always told Mom she looked like a movie star in that picture, but it wasn't until after she died that we figured out whom: Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday."
Oh, Mom! We're trying to remember the "real" you. No longer can we allow Alzheimer's to redefine our beloved ones. Please tell our elected officials you support funding Alzheimer's research.
Colorado's congressional representatives Jared Polis and Diana DeGette are cosponsors of the HOPE for Alzheimer's Act. We need all of our state's national legislators onboard. Visit
Alz.org for a form letter, but your handwritten note is even better.
Just like Mom's homemade cookies.
I envy every one of you whose mothers are still alive; mine was gone before I could say thank you.
Brenda Rader Mross
Ambassador, Alzheimer's
Association Colorado
Chapter
Fort Collins
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