First, I was surrounded by so many people who love me. My husband, my son, my parents, my sister & her son, my brother and his kids, two of my aunts and one uncle. The kids made signs and we all spent the day together.
The weather was good. No rain!! It varied between sunny & cloudy.
The first memorable moment was meeting Lonnie Ali (Muhammad's wife). She was there promoting her Fight For More campaign. What a wonderful woman. She was incredibly easy to talk to. She seemed genuinely caring about me and my PD. It was quite the experience.
The most memorable moment for me we that I got to met my role model,
M i c h a e l J . F o x !!!!!!! (written like this b/c he's in the news a lot lately and I want to make this less search able.)
Anyway, I waited in line for about 20 minutes and people just kept push by me..my sister was with me. I stood in awe watching him as he met one person after another, signing this and that, taking pictures. He was visibly shaking (from the PD) and I was just amazed at his generosity.
Finally, one of his handlers caught my eye and saw what was going on (with the people pushing). He grabbed my arm and said "you're next!". I stepped up to the table and then I lost all ability to speak, completely forgot my name.. Not because he is a celebrity but because of the deep respect and admiration I have for him in his fight for PD and for those of us who have it.
(I don't get starstruck often celebrities are not different that you or I they are just well known...actually only once did I get starstruck when I met Chris Reeve at an event at P's theatre...but that's a story for another day). My face started twitching and my arm and hand was shaking but he looked at me with such kindness in his eyes. I shook his hand and said hello and asked him to sign my PD Walk shirt. He asked me to hold the shirt tight and he signed it. Rather well actually considering his PD.
Then he leaned over for a picture. My sister took it. It came out well. I'll post it when she sends it to me.
When I walked away P met me and I began to cry (have I mentioned one of the "symptoms" of PD is being hyper-emotional?) He asked me why I was crying. I couldn't put it into words. I think it was a combination of him being such a role model for me in how I want to live my life with PD and from watching how caring & giving he is. It really was an amazing feeling. It was a good cry..not a bad one.
Then the speeches began. We were sitting in a spot where we couldn't hear most of them but when MJF spoke I stood up closer to the front to hear him. He spoke of how wonderful it was we were all there that day and mentioned how important the stem cell bill is and that even though it will again be vetoed and we will not have the votes to override that it was important that people are talking about it.
Then the walk began. We did the 2 mile walk in about 2 hours! I probably should have only done 1/2 but I was determined. (I am under medicated at the moment...need to do a post about that to catch everyone up).
All in all it was an amazing day!
OK, that's all for now, this chick is tired.
Toodles.
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