Photo By Staff Sgt. Victoria Greenia | Donald Lamson, father of Tech. Sgt. Timothy Lamson, was in World War II. Donald now...... read more read more
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SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. - Through the winter months on the rural streets of Montpelier where he lives, Tech. Sgt. Timothy Lamson would wake up at five in the morning with his son, gear up for the chilly weather, and go for a jog. Navigating the back roads in the dark mornings could be dangerous if drivers didn’t see them. They also had to be proactive so that plows didn’t accidentally scoop them up. Other hazards were less easy to avoid, like the famous potholes on Vermont roads. Sundays were their longest trek; if all went well they would run for at least 15 miles. Each week they added another two miles until they were running 20 miles at a time.
Timothy, who has been a VTANG member for four years and is an equal-opportunity specialist here on base, isn’t a health nut. He and his 19 year old son ran in a 26.2-mile marathon that weaved through Burlington in May. With the help of friends and family, they managed to raise more than $500 to donate to Alzheimer’s Foundation of America research. He hopes this money will help find the cure so that other families will not have to suffer the pain of watching a loved one deteriorate like his did. For more than a decade Timothy’s 88-year old father, Donald Lamson, has had the disease. Timothy said that watching a dynamic figure like Donald slowly fade has changed him, his siblings, and his mother.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the most prevalent type of dementia is Alzheimer’s where there’s a loss of memory and the ability to do every-day tasks. The signs start off mild but can eventually grow to where the person is unable to respond to his or her environment. At the moment scientists are unsure why this happens and there is no cure.
“I run in honor of him: His life and who he was. He’s been my best friend,” Timothy said. Training for the marathon started out about honoring his and Donald’s relationship, but since then has become about another father-son relationship; his own. While he pounded the street with his son, Timothy’s mind quieted and he reflected about his past and present. “I think about my dad and how he was a great father to me. Then I think of how I relate to my son. I try to emulate my dad and instill positive memories with my family while I am still in my prime.”
As a typical hardworking Yankee, Donald taught Timothy not to always take the easy way out of a problem. When something broke at the house they could have gone out and bought the new part. But instead Donald would roll up his sleeves and take Timothy to the dump. Crawling around discarded appliances, the two would salvage the needed part that they needed and then go home to fix it themselves. Moments like these instilled in Timothy a strong work ethic, he said.
Donald had to be strong. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America joined in World War II, like many young men he wanted to serve his country. However, Britain told him that they didn’t need any bombers – he was a B-24 Liberator- they wanted fighters. He and his fellow Liberators had to retest and then retrain before they could take to the skies in the war. Donald was lucky; he graduated fighter jet school. Many of his friends, however, didn’t pass the test to become a fighter pilot and ended up as combat glider pilots instead. A little-known aspect of the war, these pilots sailed unpowered and unarmed aircraft made of steel tubing, cloth and plywood into enemy territory to drop off supplies or troops.
Information on the internet about gliders says that the life expectancy of a glider pilot in World War II was 17 seconds. Donald lost many friends. Perhaps haunted by the memories, he spoke little about this time.
Its precious memories like these that give family members of people with Alzheimer’s internal keepsakes of who the person used to be. At the same time, these warming stories can also cause an internal war. Timothy was the youngest of six children and had a very close relationship with his father, but said he wished they had talked more. Sometimes he just sits and wonders, “What did I forget to ask him? I try to remember his anecdotes, but it’s hard. My dad is an incredibly humble guy and didn’t talk much about what he did and accomplished in his life.”
Timothy remembers his father as energetic and robust. He said, “He was smart and funny – you would never have thought that someone like him would get a disease like this.” But over the past 12 years Donald’s condition has progressed. At first it was forgetting where he put things now and then, and then he began to repeat himself in conversation. When it really became scary was when his father began to wander off.
“One day my mom and dad went for a walk. He got tired after a while – he was always physically fit but as the disease progressed it wore him down. He said he wanted to sit down and wait for her while she walked the dog. When she got back, he was gone. It ended up that he had wandered into a neighbor’s house, got something to eat and sat down to watch television.” Luckily, Timothy said, the woman who lived there quickly realized that his father wasn’t a dangerous intruder, and went outside and found his mother.
But that was when it really sank home that this was going to be an issue for the family and they were going to have to begin taking care of the man who had taken care of them for so long. It was a huge shift of reality for the family.
It has hurt Timothy to watch his father slowly deteriorate before his eyes. Donald became more sensitive to pain, gained weight as a side-effect from medications, and doesn’t interact with his children like he used to. Timothy said at times it almost brings tears to his eyes but sometimes – sometimes- Timothy would just look into his father’s eyes and see the glimmer of the man who used to spend hours holding his son between his legs as he taught him to ski. “I see my dad in there. And sometimes he comes out.”
Like last summer when Timothy and his sister dragged Donald with them to the lake on a hot summer day. In the shallow part of the water there were small rocks that dug into the soles of his feet, and Donald didn’t want to go in further. But the children persisted and finally got their dad into the part of the lake with softer sand and higher water that cooled them from the sun. After a few minutes his father looked at them with clarity in his eyes that they rarely see anymore and said simply, “I feel human again.”
Timothy, like many adult-children of Alzheimer’s sufferers, knows his time with his father is limited. Each day the disease takes Donald farther away from his family and Timothy doesn’t believe that a cure now will help his dad. Although his father may not fully understand it, when Timothy ran the marathon in May, it was for him. For his memories. For his love.
| Date Taken: | 04.07.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 06.03.2012 08:58 |
| Story ID: | 89354 |
| Location: | SOUTH BURLINGTON, VERMONT, US |
| Web Views: | 79 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Running the Burlington Marathon for memories, by SSgt Victoria Greenia, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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