My dad, Joe Convertini, was the kind of man whose impact was felt most in the way he lived every ordinary day.
He was hardworking, humble, deeply faithful, endlessly resourceful, and almost incapable of seeing someone who needed help without stepping in. An engineer by profession and the ultimate handyman by nature, he could build, repair, troubleshoot, or figure out just about anything. But what made him extraordinary wasn’t simply what he could do. It was that he was always willing to do it for someone else.
He showed love through service.
If a neighbor needed something fixed, he helped. If his family needed him, he was there. He didn’t need recognition for it, and he certainly didn’t ask for anything in return. He simply believed that if you had the ability to help someone, you should.
To me, he was Dad — the person who made the world feel safer.
He taught me how to ride a bike, and when I didn’t know how to brake and crashed straight into a patch of thorn bushes, he was there to pull me out. He taught me how to ski, and when I caught an edge on the ice and went tumbling down the mountain, he picked me up, steadied me, and made sure I did one more run before we went home. That was my dad.
He would help you back up, make sure you were okay, and then remind you — that you were capable of trying again.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how many of the things I value most about myself were first modeled for me by him: perseverance, loyalty, faith, independence, curiosity, the instinct to help, and the belief that when something matters, you don’t simply stand on the sidelines.
Those lessons have shaped the woman I became. They shape the way I approach my career, the way I advocate for others, the way I love my family, and now, the way I am choosing to respond to losing him.
In the summer of 2026, our family was confronted with something none of us could fix.
My dad began experiencing neurological symptoms that progressed at an almost unimaginable speed. He was ultimately diagnosed with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD — a rare, rapidly progressive and currently fatal prion disease. Just 12 days after receiving that diagnosis, my dad passed away on August 1, 2026. He was 67 years old.
For a man who had spent his entire life fixing things, there was something especially cruel about facing a disease for which there was nothing we could fix.
There was no treatment that could stop it. There was no cure. There simply wasn’t enough time.
That is a reality I refuse to accept as inevitable for every family who comes after ours.
My dad taught me that when you see a problem, you do what you can to help solve it. So in many ways, my advocacy for CJD is simply another chapter of his legacy.
I am walking in Strides for CJD not only because I miss my dad, but because of what he taught me to do with that grief: turn it into something useful.
Supporting the CJD Foundation helps fund critical research into prion disease, supports families facing diagnoses like ours, advances awareness and education, and helps move us toward the day when CJD is no longer a disease without answers.
Awareness matters because so many families first learn those 3 fatal letters “CJD” during the worst days of their lives. Research matters because somewhere, the discoveries being made today may become the treatment that gives another father, mother, husband, wife, sibling, or child more time.
And funding matters because cures do not happen by accident.
My dad’s life cannot be measured by the disease that took him. His legacy is much bigger than CJD.
It is in the people he helped, the family he loved, the things he built, the lessons he taught us, and the values he left behind.
And it lives in me.
Every time I stand up for something I believe in, every time I refuse to give up because something is difficult, every time I try to leave a person or a place a little better than I found it, I am carrying a piece of my dad forward.
He spent his life showing up for other people.
Now, I get to show up for him.
I hope you will join me — by walking, donating, sharing his story, or simply learning what CJD is — so that together we can keep his memory alive, raise awareness, support the families facing this disease today, and help build a future where a CJD diagnosis comes with something our family desperately wished we had: Hope.