ALL IN FOR CAUSE
Woman who lost parents to Alzheimer’s fights to end disease.
After losing both parents to complications from the disease, Mary Lynn Marrs will participate in her first Walk to End Alzheimer’s Silicon Valley on Oct. 17. As team captain of “Go Big for Kim and Martha Small,” Marrs wants to honor her parents’ memory and “to make a positive difference in the community I grew up in and my parents loved so very much.”
After losing both parents to complications from Alzheimer’s, Mary Lynn Marrs decided to help those working to cure the disease that had robbed them of their lives on multiple levels.
Marrs’ mother, Martha Small, died in 2012, and her father, downtown San Jose developer Kimball Small, died in October of last year.
On Oct. 17, nearly a year to the day of her father’s death, Marrs will participate in her first Walk to End Alzheimer’s Silicon Valley, a fundraiser for the national Alzheimer’s Association. As team captain of “Go Big for Kim and Martha Small,” Marrs wants to honor her parents’ memory and “to make a positive difference in the community I grew up in and my parents loved so very much.”
While the Smalls lived in Saratoga — Marrs is a Saratoga High alumna— her father made a name for himself as a developer in San Jose in the 1980s, br ing ing the Fairmont Hotel and retail- mixed use developments to the downtown core.
“Most importantly, from my perspective, my parents were very philanthropic and generous to numerous Silicon Valley nonprofits,” Marrs says. “I hope they would be proud of my efforts to bring increased awareness to the Alzheimer’s Association and its ultimate mission to defeat all forms of dementia.”
Marrs learned a lot about Alzheimer’s by caring for her parents as they battled the disease.
“I helped my dad with my mom’s care, and in the last few years of my dad’s life, I
was his principal caregiver,” she says, adding that caring for her father was “incredibly difficult and stressful.”
“While my mom’s Alzheimer’s progression was the one people typically think of when they think of Alzheimer’s—the long, retreating goodbye—my dad’s case was quite different. He presented first with vascular dementia, and his erratic symptoms were not well understood
or even believed by many of those surrounding him. This caused a great deal of distress in all areas of his life in what should have been his golden years.”
Marrs says the progression of her father’s disease may have been concealed by the fact that he still welcomed visitors, albeit nonverbally, near the end of his life. That quality, she adds, is what she’d like people to remember about her dad.
“I’d like him to be remembered as the inclusive, proverbial give-the-shirt-off his-back guy who wanted everyone to be part of something exciting and rewarding,” she says.
In addition to money, Marrs hopes her participation in the walk will help raise awareness of the disease and the resources available to Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
“There’s a toll-free help line, online support groups, and on-line educational resources and webinars for starters,” she says. “I can’t emphasize enough how important these tools are in navigating the course of this terrible disease, and perhaps even more so than ever during these pandemic times. Giving to the Silicon Valley Walk keeps these programs alive and well in our community.”
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Alzheimer ’ s walk par ticipants will be walking in small groups with family and friends—socially distanced and masked— on any sidewalk, track or trail as opposed to en masse on a designated course. As a volunteer for the Silicon Valley walk team, Marrs says she’s watched staff “gracefully pivot” to make sure the event went ahead as planned.
“W ho knew when I joined the Silicon Valley walk committee at the start of the year that lockdown, Google hangout meetings and social distancing would be the norm?” she adds. “Because of the association’s ability to embrace technology in order to keep everyone safe while also retaining the flavor and integrity of the walk, I am able to walk everywhere—meaning not only can I physically walk with my small pod of friends and family in my neighborhood, I can include via my smartphone and Alzheimer’s app my family and friends from literally all over the globe to walk with me at the same time.”
To register for or donate to the Walk to End Alzheimer’s Silicon Valley, visit http://act.alz.org/SiliconValley2020.