Wednesday, August 1, 2007

celia


a few weeks ago i saw a post on the caregivers forum from a young woman (age 16) wanting teenagers of ADLO to contact her if they would be interested in speaking with her. it seems she was planning a cross country trip and wanted to talk to as many young people as possible. i copied and forwarded the post to my sons to reply if they were interested. well, monday mark called me at work to see what we had going on today before dinner. it seemed celia would be driving through wisconsin and she wanted to stop and talk to him.

what an impressive young woman. she and her dad glen are traveling across the county this month so that celia can speak to teenagers. she will be a senior in high school this fall so they will also be touring colleges. their family is from massachusetts and celia and her dad will travel the northern route out west, head south through california and then go home via a southern route. they anticipate they will be gone for about 4 weeks.

celia lost her grandfather(glen's father) to EOAD 5 years ago after a 12 year struggle. for about a year celia has been volunteering in a dementia unit of a nursing home and has noticed that very few teenagers come to visit their grandparents/loved ones. she wants to write a guide and have it published to help teenagers deal with this disease and help them to understand what is happening to their LO's.

they were here for about an hour i guess and mark and celia spent most of the time at the kitchen table. celia interviewed mark about his impression and feelings about AD, and his relationship/experiences with russ. bob and i had the opportunity to spend that time with celia’s dad glen. he was very kind and appreciative of us opening up our house to them. he though should be given a lot of credit for traveling this summer with celia to make this a reality for her. this is going to be part of a senior year project.

WOW is all i can say. a lot of people don’t give our current youth enough credit but this young woman is simply amazing. in the short time i spent with celia and watching her interaction with russ i could tell what a sensitive and compassionate young woman she is. she got down on her knee to be eye level with russ and touched his arm as she spoke softly and slowly to russ. good luck to you celia in whatever you decide to pursue. you are a very mature, insightful and wonderful young woman. i look forward to reading your guide. i'm sure it will be very helpful to teenagers and adults alike!

6 comments:

Unk said...

Nancy:
This is how I feel about Matt and Mark. I think that they are exceptional. I am so blessed that I got a chance to spend some time with them. I'm sure that this young lady is special, but so are your son's.

Unknown said...

What an interesting story. Thanks very much for sharing about this. Again another impressive young person. They are so loving and caring.

StefanieRose said...

that is so sweet. i have also been talking to Celia about my experances... and i think you have persuaded me to talk to her more. Maybe even meet with her. Thanks Nancy. BY the way i am jealous that she got to meet you! :)

nancy said...

thanks unk, but i think you're kinda prejudiced, especially when it comes to your namesake!

nancy said...

i think you should meet celia stef or at least keep e-mailing her. you have so much to offer her!

~Betsy said...

Celia seems like a wonderful young lady and I gotta hand it to her dad - driving cross country for the month of August! Wow, good for them!