If you are reading this, thank you for taking a moment to honor the life of my mother, Donna Rockhill.

She spent more than four decades caring for others. She was a nurse, a mentor, a wife, a mother, a Nonna, and a friend to countless people. Whether she was helping patients recover, guiding new healthcare professionals, caring for my father after his stroke, or showing up for family and friends whenever they needed her, she lived a life defined by service.

In 2026, our family lost Donna to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a devastating illness that most people have never heard of until it touches someone they love. I wish our family had never learned what those three letters meant. But now that we have, I want to do everything I can to help ensure that one day another family won't have to.

My mother believed that caring for others was more than a profession. It was a responsibility. Even after learning she was sick herself, her focus remained on everyone else: my father, her children, her grandchildren, her patients, and the people around her.

This fundraiser is one small way to continue the work she spent her entire life doing.

If you're able, please consider making a donation to the CJD Foundation. Your gift helps support research, education, advocacy, and families facing one of the most heartbreaking diseases imaginable.

If you're unable to donate, sharing this page is another meaningful way to help.

She leaves this world with a lot less love in it.

Thank you for helping us carry a little of that love forward.