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My life, and my family, has been affected deeply by ALS.  My mother died in 1989, at the young age of 52, after a three-year battle with the disease.  It was very sobering when I turned 52 several years ago, to face the reality that this was how old my mom was when she DIED and I was going to outlive her.  I’m so full of life in my 50’s right now,  I cannot imagine how sad it really must have been for her to deal with having to face an early death.  And because she lost the ability to talk or write early on in her illness, these thoughts were sealed deep inside of her, never to be shared. 

I was 30 when I was robbed of my mother.  I was just a new mom myself and had so many things we were supposed to do together.  I had so many new mom questions. She had so looked forward to being a grandmother, to sew baby clothes, decorate the nurseries and have the grandchildren come to visit.   Instead we watched her battle ALS, intensely trying to survive something that is 100% of the time fatal.  It took a very long time to break out of memories of mom being anything but sick – thankfully my parents were camera folk and we have lots and lots of pictures and slides to sift through to reminisce about better times.  But I miss my mom.  I miss that she never got to see me as an older, more mature and sensible adult. I miss that she didn’t get to see me as a parent – to laugh when my kids gave me grey hair and she could tell me “I told you so”.  I miss that she never got a chance to see her granddaughters grow up and become the phenomenal and brilliant women that they are today.  All because of a disease, that over 25 years later, is still 100% of the time, fatal.

If that isn’t sad enough for our family, years later, two of my mom's sisters died from variant forms of ALS - one in her late 60’s, and one in her 80’s.  And currently my cousin, Carol Ann, who is in her 60’s is now waging her own valiant battle against this horrible disease.  So yes, my life, and my family, has been affected deeply by ALS. 

And so I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to raise some more awareness and funds for some ALS charities that are doing great things by starting a Tshirt fundraiser  – you can wear this shirt proudly all year long and help keep spreading the word 24/7/365.  I have chosen three charities to split ALL the profits equally from this fundraiser with.  The Les Turner ALS Foundation (www.lesturnerals.org)  is special because my cousin’s doctor, Dr. Teepu Siddique, is affiliated with it and he has some great things going on in regards to ALS research.  The FrateTrain ALS Research and Support Fund  (www.petefrates.com) is special because Pete Frates  got the ice bucket challenge going in August 2014 and brought so much awareness to ALS.   The ALS Association (www.alsa.org) is special because that pretty much was the big daddy out there when my family was dealing with my mom’s illness.  My goal is to sell 250 shirts at $25 each in 30 days which would raise over $1000 for each charity. The colors chosen for this shirt are the ALS awareness colors of navy and white which symbolize Lou Gehrig’s Yankee pinstripe colors.  

Please help spread the word and share this fundraiser, the more we sell, the more we raise and the more that goes towards ALS research.  Please help strike out ALS #EveryAugustUntilACure

Fondly,

Valerie