A walk for Dad
Jack McWhirter’s family continues to walk in his honour at the annual IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer’s.
Jack’s Quarters
Sharon Bonar’s dad met his friends for coffee multiple times a day.
They had a regular spot in Portage la Prairie, but the whole point wasn’t really the coffee — it was to show up and be together. Jack McWhirter was that kind of guy; friendly, but private and he always showed up for the people he cared about.
Jack had been an airplane mechanic in the Air Force, and after retirement, he fixed small engines out of his garage. He was proud of his work and enjoyed breathing new life into things others may have given up on.
One of Jack’s quirks was that he wasn’t a fan of walking long distances, which Sharon finds funny now that his whole family shows up to walk 5K in his name every year.
Sharon and her brothers decided to sign up for the IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer’s after Jack was diagnosed with dementia. They began looking for help shortly after the diagnosis. The Alzheimer Society gave them a better sense of what to expect, and later, when Jack moved into a long-term care home in Winnipeg, Sharon reached out again to find local support. Around that time, she heard about the Walk and thought it might be something meaningful the whole family could do together.
Jack was still alive when they attended their first Walk. “He wasn’t into the whole walking thing,” Sharon laughs, “but seeing everyone show up together mattered more.”
“He was just happy that we were all there,” she says.
They called their team “Jack’s Quarters”, as a nod to Jack’s nickname, “Quarter” (if you say his last name McWhirter fast enough, it sounds a bit like “Quarter”).
Although the original Quarter is no longer here to walk alongside his family, Sharon, her brothers, kids and grandchildren continue to walk together.
Something that stands out to Sharon at each Walk is how many people are there, all walking for someone, all dealing with the same thing in different ways.
“The people there are happy. Everyone is proud to be there to represent who they’re walking for.”
For Sharon, the Walk is a way to hold onto her dad, the man who showed up for coffee every day and made sure his friends did too. So, every year, Jack’s Quarters does the same.
