This year we celebrated my parents' lives with a memorial, 9 years after losing my Dad to lung cancer and 6 years after losing my mom to CADASIL. I cherish my memories with them but my heart aches for the time I wish we had together, both taken too early.

My Mom was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1997...12 years later we discovered it wasn't MS but instead CADASIL, a rare genetic condition. CADASIL is a devastating hereditary stroke disorder, causing ischemic strokes throughout one's lifetime. Minor at first and then progressively more severe. My mom's sweet personality started to change, first tiredness, then apathy, depression, and eventually early dementia. CADASIL stole my Mom from us when she was 66 years old. But CADASIL took far more than that. It took those last years of her life, her energy, ability to drive, then to walk, then to talk. And the last years of my Dad's life, through endless medical appointments, pointless treatments, and frustration. With CADASIL being a genetic disease, every person in our family has a 50/50 chance of being affected.