Those of you who know me know that earlier this year my family lost our Ba to Dementia. It was one of the worse things my family had to endure. We watched helplessly as our Ba forgot us all slowly and we became strangers in her life. In Gujarati (the language my family speak) the word Ba means grandmother and mother. To us all our Ba was both. She treated everyone equally and somehow managed to not divide her love or attention for us but to provide another equal amount for each new member of the family, whether it was a new born, spouse or pet. In her 85 years she accomplished what most people can only dream of she had 7 children, 6 daughter-in-laws and 1 son-in-law, 17 grand children and 7 great grandchildren, she attended the weddings of 7 of her grandchildren and took centre stage for each one. 
A couple of months ago I was watching TV when I saw an advert for Dementia, its funny how before I witnessed the devastation of it I never even knew a thing about Dementia. It is a cruel illness and it is increasing, roughly 1 person every 3 minutes develops this problem. Dementia is caused by diseases of the brain, the most common one people have heard of is Alzheimer's disease. Ba had a lesser know disease called Vascular Dementia, which was most likely caused by a stroke she had many years ago.
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| My first birthday |
The advert got me thinking about my charity work… every year for some years now I have tried to push my self to raise money for charity. I have completed some amazing challenges, such as the national 3 peaks challenge, Manchester's survival of the fittest and I attempted the 100k walk from London to Brighton (couldn't complete the challenge due to my other gran passing). This year I didn't have a challenge worth raising money for. I have done my half marathon, but I didn't raise money for charity as I wanted to do that for myself to prove I could push my self beyond my comfort zone. So the advert inspired me to set a different challenge for myself. This was not to push myself but to see if I could do something for my grans memory. I googled the The Alzheimer's Society to see what events they were running, they had a series of different events, running, cycling, swimming etc. One particular event got my brain ticking over. The Memory Walk! 
The Memory walk was perfect. The challenge for me was to get the family involved (the thing Ba treasured the most), and do something fun that was reminiscent of my childhood, when the whole family would drive somewhere like Blackpool or The Lakes and spend a day walking around laughing with a little picnic. The memory walk was suitable for all abilities from babies to elderly, fit athletes to couch potatoes. I wanted everyone to have ownership as well so I set a ridiculous fundraising target of £1000 and sent it to the family (you can still visit the JustGiving site). The response was over whelming! Everyone was interested. We all signed up and we set off fundraising in our own way. I never thought we would get near the target however we not only collect a £1000 but we smashed it. On Saturday we had £1179 with donations still coming in from our friends and family. I now hope to make £1500 by the time the final collections are made. Donate
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| Team Fakira before the walk |
Saturday 26th September 2015 - The walk
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| Start of the event |
After all the anticipation and the brilliant fund-raising the Fakiras gathered at Heaton Park in Manchester, the weather was perfect! it was sunny and warm, but not to warm to make it hard to walk. As we waited for the walk to start I was met a few friends I haven't seen for years and it was amazing how their experience with the Dementia was same as mine. There were 5,000 people at the event it was amazing. It took us 15 minutes to cross the start line, we must of walked 50 yards before we encountered our first problem. My uncle Dinesh (aka Daji) had a trainer issue and the soles of his trainers started to come loose. By the time we got round the first corner the soles had completely fallen off both trainers. He was now walking on the inner lining, we all advised that maybe he should sit this one out, but he was adamant about completing the full 10k walk. If you know my Daji you will know that walking is not in his DNA, so to do the walk practically barefooted on gravel was going to be hard.
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| Me and Daji |
As the field started stretching out so did our group. I decided that I will try and stay in the middle and make sure that the less fit were ok. For some reason my back pack was being filled slowly with unwanted drinks and jackets, and it was getting heavier and heavier. By the end it must of weighed 15-20Kg. The walk was pleasant and we got to meet up with the members of the family who couldn't join in with the walk but came to support.
The course was 2 laps and at the end of the first lap the kids had to call it quits as their tiny little legs couldn't keep up, but I was really impressed that they managed to walk 5k and they did it with a smile. We all said to Daji that he has done brilliantly well with first 5k but it probably better if he stops, but he was not quitting!
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| Dip and Bhav |
Some of us had a quit pit stop for a drink and the toilet break. As we got to the top of the hill my uncle Dee had a brain wave and gave Daji the insoles of his trainers to put inside his trainers to make the walk less painful. As we got to the end it was like a carnival, there was a band playing and a DJ. We posed for a picture as we crossed the line and met up with the rest of the family. We also received pictures from my cousin's Dipendra and Bhavisha who were on holiday in Turkey on the day but they signed up and did a walk round the resort in their memory walk T-Shirts. Thankfully we got medals for them as well.
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| Better view than Manchester |
Although the walk wasn't a physical challenge for me it was a great experience that allowed the family to get together and remember the reason we are still close to this day. I know that Ba would be very proud of us all and how everyone put effort in for her.
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| Finisher Medal |
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