Dear Valiant Readers,

Today we became a cause.

Ten thousand of you have decided, since last year, that it’s worth your while to visit Brain in a Jar.

I offer my thanks to the beautiful and brilliant Hayley for inspiring me to start the blog. She is very busy these days taking care of her dad with AD. Both are truly remarkable people.

Also, as of today, ten-thousand dollars have been donated to the Dr. Beauregard Lee Bercaw Neurology Fellowship at the University of Florida’s Brain Institute. We still have a long way to go to reach the half-million goal, but I know that Beau will be forever remembered in the medical community, too. His work will live in the minds of new neurologists. People just like him who want to rid the world of a wretched memory-stealing, brain-atrophying disease. The kind that Hayley and Don are battling at this very moment.

I am reminded of a verse in “Amazing Grace,” which we sang at Beau’s Memorial Service:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we first begun.

My tide of sorrow is becoming a tidal wave of action.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

I thank you all for being the life preservers who have kept me afloat. Whenever and wherever you can, toss a line to another and another and another who is living with or dying from Alzheimer’s disease. Hayley and Don, all 10,000 of us are with you.

Love,
Gal