Araceli Cenidoza Famularcano showed her family a life filled with joy and compassion. She would start conversations with strangers, and giggled to herself when she made mistakes. Araceli only spoke good words about her three daughters, Cheryl, Amy, and Jenny. She took the youngest anywhere she wanted to go. She especially loved to hear her husband, Rudy, sing love ballads on karaoke during family parties and she wouldn’t be afraid to call them “sweet potato” when they were acting lazy.
Then she started forgetting. She was confused when she was found wandering the train tracks a few blocks from their house. She kept trying to walk to her childhood home. She wouldn’t understand why she always found her youngest, crying in her 20s. She stopped talking in the middle of her sentences. She had trouble recognizing each of their faces. She would only speak in Tagalog. She had trouble eating, and then she lost control of her breathing.
Araceli would have turned 74 the week after she passed, and she was very loved.
The day after Thanksgiving 2018, family and friends were invited into the home of Jenny and Lucas Chen to purchase art in support the Cure Alzheimer’s fund in memoriam of Araceli. Close friends were invited to donate original pieces for the fundraising event, which continues in the online store, Regular Happy.