An emotional holiday commercial from Chevrolet is hitting home with many Americans and could very well become one of those ads we'll never forget. The automaker's more than five-minute ad, called "A Holiday to Remember," opens with a family gathering. A man and his daughter are talking about the declining well-being of his wife, who has early-stage Alzheimer's. "There's some days she doesn't even recognize me," he says, answering his daughter's question about whether her mom has more bad days than good. A young woman, presumably the older couple's granddaughter, overhears the conversation and makes a decision. "Let's make today a good day," she tells her grandmother – who sits with a vacant look – before carefully leading her to a blue 1972 Chevrolet Suburban in the garage. As John Denver's "Sunshine On My Shoulders" plays, the young woman drives her grandmother through town, reminding her of pivotal places in her life, like her childhood home, her high school, and a drive-in theater that triggers a memory. It was there the now elderly woman's husband first kissed his wife-to-be, the granddaughter says. Her grandmother then corrects her: "No, I kissed him. He was far too shy." She then tells her teary-eyed granddaughter: "Bill! I need to see Bill." The pair return to the family home, where the longtime couple hold each other and kiss with tears streaming down their faces. He has her, for a moment. The ad was created with help from the Alzheimer's Association because most importantly, the commercial showcases what people living with Alzheimer's and their families go through, especially around the holidays. An estimated 6.7 million Americans ages 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's in 2023, according to the association. Internet users are opening up about how the ad is making them feel. YouTube user @kathiowen observed that "the best marketing tells a story." "Thank you Chevrolet for the tears of joy," she said. USA Today's story by Emilee Coblentz: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/11/29/chevrolet-holiday-commercial-alzheimers/71743866007/ The video is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnZGEUA4oBk

The start of the pandemic was shocking for me as was standing in front of the very essential level up of my life - I was applying to higher education. Let me begin with something good. I had already reviewed my IELTS certification on March 6, before everywhere was closed for quarantine starting from March 15, 2020. That was the only achievement that got me into an American university. But what about finishing compulsory education? The quality of education is seriously dropped, and many of us missed our additional lessons for preparation because walking outside while quarantine costed rocket high. One of the pity things for me was that I and all of my friends couldn't have the graduation ceremony and party that we expected to be unforgettable memories. Overall, no high school or lyceum graduate couldn't experience it in Uzbekistan. Whenever we visit our school or lyceum in May for graduation ceremonies and look at graduates we feel like: "Yeah, they're having it". The worst feeling ever. We are seven in my family. My grandparents are over 80 and my parents are also quite old. I have a brother and a sister who are schoolers. Covid hit us significantly as we experienced it multiple times during the period. My father had a very severe type. He managed to get well at home because we were sure there weren't enough places at Covid treating centers. After him, I. High temperatures were a real burden for me and antibiotics were too difficult to come over for my stomach. However, thank God, other members of the family felt Covid like simple flu and just several doses of treatment immediately got them on their feet. One of the bitter truths about the family I realized during the pandemic is that too much family time is harmful to the inter-family relationship. I wanted to run away somehow. At the times when everyone worked and studied far from home, at the end of the day we enjoyed the family gathering as we missed each other. But in quarantine, we were fed up with each other. One interesting fact, the number of divorces increased during the quarantine in my country. I live in the countryside, almost 2 hours from the city center and during the pandemic our town became dead. Not a single body was outside, most of the shops were closed, and the hospital which is at the end of our street was supervised by military forces. Every 2-3 hours there were military cars along the street informing us not to go out at certain hours of the day and how to take measures and behave while we are outside. It was scary that it felt like a commendation regime in war periods. I was seventeen and this environment caused me to experience severe depression without any hope for my bright future and online lessons caused my eyes side to drop, and gave me early back, and heart pains. It felt like my body got older by 10 years but in front of my eyes, time barely passed. About after 6 months, when quarantine rules pretty eased down and we were finally allowed to visit the university, I felt some significant changes in my receptor organs - my tongue and nose. Things start to taste differently and smells just turned off. I was eating food like from another planet and for additional five or six months, I missed the real taste of meat and fried potatoes. Still, I start recognizing the smell two or three times slower than normal people, and eggs, greens, and cucumbers still taste different than it was before the pandemic. Starting face-to-face studies and communication with peers was very precious for me. However, there were sad stories too. Two of my peers who had been accepted to Japanese and Korean universities couldn't get there due to quarantine in both countries. Moreover, some girls told me that they lost loved ones and even family members during the pandemic. After, hearing them I felt grateful for all I have almost haven't changed during the pandemic. Bonus sad story by me: my family won the Green Card DV-2020 program but due to quarantine our visas expired. Now, everything we spent getting into the US is just burned, nothing left. Yes, now everything is just passed away and all we have now is mostly memories and unforgettable life lessons. So, what I learned from the pandemic is very precious to me. Firstly, I started to appreciate the freedom that is given to me and learned to experience more gratefulness. It wasn't all about the feelings, too. My hard skills also improved even though I have learned them online. That might be too much, so let me conclude. The world is not sure if Covid-19 is just spread by bats or if it was an unfinished biological weapon, one thing is obvious we are just killing ourselves and slowing down our evolution. Curiosity kills the cat, I hope we won't appear in the place of that cat again.

Ever since thoughts started developing in me, I often wondered about my worth in this world; sometimes in people's actions and sometimes in their words, sometimes in the silence and sometimes in the herds. I traveled far across from the ocean of thoughts, leaving the footprints of my fading stories to find answer to the question, “What's my worth?”, I whispered to my heart but it was uninterested to answer me like none was interested in me. Fading got familiar to me since my childhood. As a child, I was always obedient to my parents' decision of sending me school, never arguing. I wanted to say them, “I don't want to be there. I miss home.” but my voice faded and my choice faded with it too. I was convinced that you get to make a lot of friends in school, and school life is the best part of our life. However, I always ended up with one or hardly two friends. Even though my friend circle was very small, they still didn't know me like I didn't know myself. I just knew I was not okay with the normality they called it ‘Normal'. If so am I abnormal to think beyond the stereotypes set by the so called normal people? I was to find out answer to my only one question but they started piling up with my age until now I realized my worth. After school, I joined high school as normal. I was bounded with all sorts of protection since my childhood. I didn't know what criticism meant until once I got trapped in the hole, hollow enough to be loaded with all sorts of the negativity I never discovered in my life. People made judgments from how you look to how you dress yourself up and from how you thought to how you actually behaved. I didn't know how I am supposed to behave with different types of judgments of different kinds of people. I only knew the language of kindness. I suddenly felt like I didn't know the world but yet, persistent with my perspective towards the world. I then took a reverse turn to my life to observe and analyze them once again but with more speculations this time. I thought this way: People weren't really interested in me like I wasn't interested in their lives. When children were struggling to go to school, I went regularly like I had no problem with it. I had learnt to sacrifice for the thing that's important in very early age of my life. When people were busy making judgments, I was mending myself to be stronger than I was. When people didn't really have thoughts, I was thinking of defining my worth. “I was definitely worth it.”, I told myself for the first time. And since that first time, it has been every time to believe, praise and tell myself that ‘I am worth it.' I was searching for my worth all around the world with people's judgments surrounding while it was within me like they say, “I was a fruit searching for a seed outside of it when it was within me.”

*my ordeal with the evil witch* It was a cool Saturday evening, I had gone to watch a football match which ended at around 11 p.m, so I decided to trek down home since I had no money left on me. On my way home I followed a scary bush path that was supposed to make my journey Short. While walking through the scary bush path, I started hearing eyrie sounds of vultures and bats which made me to increase my pace and eventually I found myself running. The sounds came with a gusty wind and a spooky scent which made me to wonder where the scent was coming from. Then I stopped running just to observe if someone was following me. As I stopped, my body trembled in fear, my sight grew dim, and my head heavy. Then I turned abruptly to see What could be lurking, but to my greatest dismay, I saw no one. However, I could still perceive the scent even more which convinced me that someone was definitely following me and this had worsened my fears so much. Nevertheless, I summoned up courage and continued my journey home. This breeze came again this time with a sudden downpour, mystic lighting and rumbling thunderstorms coupled with horrible sounds from different angles which was characterised by the peels of an old mission bell depicting signals of occult gathering. Suddenly I saw a lady with a horrifying figure typically of a long dark hair and enshrouded with a thick long black garment walked past me swiftly, and all of a sudden my heart started beating fast, and my head seemed to have increased so much that my body couldn't carry it. At this point, I couldn't help myself,but to my surprise, the lady disappeared. There and then I realised I had unconsciouly wet my pants , an evidence of unimaginable horror. And I knew for sure that it was the end of the road for me. With uttermost trepidations, I sped off taking another direction which I never knew would lead me to an ancient cemetery with past history of poltergeist haunts. Unconsciouly, I was moving closer to my death! The devil was calling unto me and unknowingly, I was running to him for rescue . As I ran and shouted for help along the road leading to the cemetery, all I could hear was sadistic deep chested laughters and reverberating voices and consequently, I had increased my speed. Unknowing to me, I saw the first grave epithaphed with gothic inscriptions. And to my consternation, I saw another grave,the second one having the greater part of its surface cracked as if someone had just been resurrected from the grave. I was bewildered and then I knew that I have paid the fallen angel a visit in his own abode. Immediately I stopped and saw a creature wearing a white cloth with gray hairs all over her head. Her face was so wrinkled that her eyeballs looked hidden under the wrinkled crony face. Unbelievably, I was standing face to face with a ghost!. I was so scared to death that I had to run; but the farther I ran, the closer she came. I was so confused on what to do that I forgot God, I forgot to pray! My body vibrated spasmodically like one who had stepped onto a life wire ,my clothe was drained with cold sweat even though I shivered convulsively. Having resolved to abandon myself to my faith, I gave up since my doom seemed ineluctable. Immediately I heard her voice saying" welcome my son, don't be afraid because tonight you have made the right choice. Come and I will take you to your rightful place.Tonight is your night! Very few have been given this opportunity, come and I will expose you the mysteries of the world herein and beyond!. At this point, I was freaked out to death. I called upon death to come and take me before her red scrawny fingers grip me . Suddenly nothing was working out for me again and before I knew it, she pinned me down and then, I resolved to make one last choice, I decided to face the devil no matter my fears. I turned to look straight into her eyes but all I could see was fire characterised by a burning desire to ravage and destroy. She charged aggressively with a sharp canine in her mouth, a mouth full of blood. Her hands and legs were so terrible that I nearly puked. The devil abducted me and kept me starved for five days. On the fifth day, I saw her coming towards me with an axe, I was paralyzed because I knew at this moment that I was going to die. When she was close enough to me, she raised the axe above my head and immediately, I jerked up from my slumber to find out that I was in an hospital and that I had been in coma for two weeks Just then, I wondered why I had to see they devil while I was still alive. Story by cheif host

Writing has always come easily to me. That isn't to say that my writing is anything special, only that when it comes to sitting down and putting a bunch of words together I think I'm pretty dang alright at it. I've met people that say they have such a hard time writing but it's difficult for me to understand that. Those same people always try to attribute my lack of understanding on the matter to my education (I have a degree in English) but the truth to that is I wouldn't have pursued a degree in this subject if I wasn't already good at it. I'm being 100% honest – being pro-active is not my strong suit. If it comes between making a decision of taking the “easy” route or the “hard (but, in the long run, more beneficial because it teaches you about hard work, perseverance and blah blah blah)” route I'm not going to think too long on which one I'd prefer to take. Essays in college were a breeze, although I'm still sometimes shocked at the quality of work I was able to produce under the circumstances I put myself in. Example: its 8pm the night before my 16 page essay on [insert some literary debate here] is due. I have yet to open a word document. Sure, I've put some thought into what I want to write. That's the hardest part, right? Sitting down and putting all my thoughts into words in one cohesive structure just came so easily to me. I think it has something to do with the amount of privacy you have while writing. No one is listening to you stumble through your words or hearing your attempts at constructing a well worded sentence. You have complete privacy to say what you're thinking. You have the ability to rewrite and reorganize your words. You can take a minute to think on exactly which word best articulates the thought you are trying to express and, if you don't like it, can decide to change it later. You can't do that when you're talking. Well, I suppose you could but it would be weird. This brings me to my road bump when it comes to writing – who will be reading my words? Because, like I said, I consider writing very private. Concern of who will read my writing once I'm finished is a huge deal to me. With college essays it didn't matter much because I knew the person reading my essay would be someone educated on the subject I had written about and would be judging my words based on my display of knowledge on the subject. That isn't too intimidating because it's not creative writing. It's not something that would unveil ideas and thoughts that completely originated in my mind. I once took a Science Fiction class in college and for the final we had to write a creative sci-fi short story. That terrified me. Completely and utterly terrified me. I couldn't hide behind facts and information that were accessible to everyone on a subject that has been widely discussed for years. These would be words and thoughts that were 100% my own. Had this not been an assignment and I was writing something for myself that I could decide who, if anyone, could read it I think I would have enjoyed writing it much more. Once the story was done I began second guessing all of my ideas. Is that really original or am I completely ripping something off? Is this plot even believable? Does it make sense at all? Those were my road bumps. The actual process of writing the story came effortlessly – thoughts into words. Easy. Having to deal with my thoughts on them afterwards – yikes. Turns out my instructor thought it was great and so did the select few I shared it with. They all told me I had a “gift” and should be very proud. This made me feel uncomfortable. Receiving praise for something that came so easily to me didn't seem merited or earned. I truly felt as though I made no effort. I've always sort of blushed when people make comments like these and brush them off faster than they can be laid on me. Only recently have I decided to try to embrace this “talent” I have and attempt to open myself up to the possibilities it may grant me. The catalyst for this change of thought occurred yesterday when someone told me how talented and gifted I was after reading a cover letter I wrote for a job. A cover letter. A simple, short, nothing-special piece of writing that I was trying to use to convince someone to hire me. I finally decided that I should try to start sharing my writing with people. So here I was with this brave (ha) new confidence. I went online to see where I could put this bravery to the test. The first think I came across was Biopage, and they were asking for people to submit writing on the subject of… anything they wanted. Well shoot, if there's anything else further from a prompt I don't know what it is. This project called for me to come up with something 100% on my own for others to read and it was perfect. So here I am. I sat down and just started writing. I figured talking about why I was here was as good as anything else I could come up with. So now I'm ready to get my ideas out there, terrified as I may be.