{"id":1532,"date":"2014-06-14T16:18:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T16:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annetarsia.com\/?p=1532"},"modified":"2014-06-14T16:18:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T16:18:36","slug":"the-longest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/2014\/06\/the-longest-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Longest Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 21st was my Gramma Gray’s birthday.\u00a0 I always remembered her birthday because it was on the Longest Day of the year. Gramma was very important to me, growing up – she and Grampa moved across the country from Ohio to be with us after they retired, and they supported me through lots of tough times.\u00a0 Gramma and Grampa were my safe harbor.\u00a0 At the end of her life, she had memory problems, and drifted away.\u00a0 She probably had Alzheimer’s disease, but in the 1980’s that wasn’t something that people talked about. It was very difficult to see Gramma become unresponsive.<\/p>\n

The happiest I ever saw Gramma was the day I married Bill Berk.\u00a0 She always said she wanted me to find a man just like Grampa (they were married for 62 years).\u00a0 When Bill proposed to me, in 1984, on the way back from the beach our first stop was to see Gramma and Grampa, to give them the news.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>
Bill and Gramma Gray<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Anne<\/a>
Anne and Bill Berk, Lucille and Loren Gray April 11, 1985<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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After we were married, they never said anything, but I knew they wanted great-grandchildren!\u00a0 Gramma was rapidly losing her memory, though, and they moved to a care facility.\u00a0 She lost weight and became very frail.\u00a0 Grampa devoted himself to her, but he became frail, too.\u00a0 By the time William was born, she was in a wheelchair, and was unresponsive most of the time. When she spoke, it didn’t mean anything.\u00a0 We took the baby to her, and set him on her lap.\u00a0 She couldn’t take her eyes off him, and patted him softly as she smiled.<\/p>\n

Today, we know that many people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.\u00a0 We catch it earlier, can treat it to some extent, and are learning how to manage the disease to help the patients and the families deal with the difficulties involved.\u00a0 Much needs to still be done, and research requires immense resources of time and money, education and out-reach.\u00a0 My friends at the Village Yarn and Fiber Shop<\/a>, also known as the “House of Dizzy Sheep”, know personally the toll that the disease takes, as it has affected beloved family members of staff.\u00a0 They are sponsoring a team for “The Longest Day” event, which raises money and awareness for Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia.<\/p>\n

Friend of Dizzy, Deb Jaworowicz, has just published a new pattern, for a lovely shawl named Leanai’<\/a>, proceeds of which will all be donated to the Alzheimer’s association.\u00a0 The pattern she designed last year, Volo<\/a>, has raised $300 for the cause.\u00a0 Both patterns are lovely, and I encourage you to get both of them in your library. We all know someone whose life is affected by this disease, and a hand-knit shawl would be a thoughtful gift.\u00a0 Let’s support the people fighting this disease; those living with it, those supporting them, and the researchers searching for answers.<\/p>\n

Both patterns together are a mere $10.\u00a0 If that doesn’t seem enough, join me in supporting a member of the Dizzy team here<\/a>.\u00a0 They are only halfway to their fund-raising goal, with 7 days left. Hurry!<\/p>\n

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June 21st was my Gramma Gray’s birthday.\u00a0 I always remembered her birthday because it was on the Longest Day of the year. Gramma was very important to me, growing up – she and Grampa moved across the country from Ohio to be with us after they retired, and they supported me through lots of tough […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}