The Greatest Man They Will Never Know

Many of us are inspired or motivated by something from our life’s experiences: some past trauma, the desire to never be ‘that way’ or let ‘that’ happen to you, or perhaps to be the example we didn’t have. For the founder of the Urie Waite Foundation, inspiration and motivation were byproducts of love—love for her late father, Urie Waite. Describing him, she states, “He was the perfect representation of Christ in our home. He was the most loving, gentle, peaceful, hard-working man I had ever met. I remember waking up at night and hearing him pray. I couldn’t hear all he was saying, but I could clearly hear him calling my name!” 

Sherian also has vivid memories of her dad leaving the house to work on his farm and returning at dusk with the harvest of the day. “I cannot recall him ever taking a day off,” she says. “He wasn’t big in stature, but he was robust. He was strong. He was never sick. He never even slept in.”

It was this image of her father that made it almost impossible for her to embrace the fragments of Mr. Waite that were left after Alzheimer’s had run its course. Gone was the strong, unbreakable man she had known and loved. He had become a mere shell of himself, adult-like in features but childlike, broken, depressed, and helpless in presentation. How do you grieve for someone you love while he’s still living, even though he’s just hanging on by a thread? How do you reconcile having the physical presence of someone so familiar and so important—someone whose words and touch meant life to you, someone whose presence gave you reason to live—with that same person now staring at you with unknowing eyes? How do you watch that person just fade away?

It was this pain that led Sherian to the field of social work and more specifically, gerontology. “I wanted to know all there is to know about this disease. I wanted to be equipped to help families walk through the pain and the grief and the anger that they face as they walked this lonely and treacherous path with their loved ones,” she said. “As a therapist and social worker, I want to be there for as many patients and families as I can, to let them know they are not alone, to help them grieve for the living, to help prepare them for what is to come, and after its all said and done, to help them remember the parts that that disease can never touch: the heart of their loved one, the precious memories of who they were before.”

Sherian has dedicated her life to this cause and to the cause of honoring her father’s legacy. She has created the Urie Waite Foundation. For her this is a mission of love - Sherian’s mission of love—both for her father and for people affected by Alzheimer's—can be summed up in this one statement: “I will do all I can to preserve the memory of the greatest man they’ll never know!”