I Would Walk 10,000 Miles

I have not been able to get that Proclaimers song out of my head ever since I came across this story.

You know the song:

I would walk 500 milesAnd I would walk 500 moreJust to be the man who walked 1000 milesTo fall down at your door

Only this story is about a woman in Colorado Springs who walked 10,000 miles to honor her dead husband's memory.

Eighty-eight-year-old Martha Michel has been taking walks around the perimeter of her husband's nursing home six days a week for 11 years now, finally hitting her 10,000th mile this week. According to the AP, 10,000 miles is the equivalent of walking across the entire country three times.

"Well, after I got quite a few miles, I kept setting new goals and I thought, 'My gosh, maybe I can make 10,000 miles' and so I did," Martha tells APTN.

She used to take the walk around the Namaste Alzheimer Center with her husband, Lester, but he died in 1998. When her husband became too devasted by the disease to walk around the lake at the nursing home with her, she pushed him in his wheelchair. Martha recalls one moment on those daily walks:

"He was pretty far along with the Alzheimer's. His arms just hung down; his face was just expressionless," she told APTN. "But we stopped on the other side and he said, 'I want to hold you.' And I picked up his arms and put them around me."

The couple were married for 56 years and always loved to hike the Colorado peaks until Lester became too ill. Martha marked her milestone with her five children, 18 grand-children, and 13 great-grandchildren in tow.

Asked what advice she has for families dealing with Alzheimer's she had this to say: "Just keep loving them and caring for them." Good advice under any circumstance.

See more of Martha's story below:

Photo courtesy of prakhar via Flickr.