Bethel Park family hosts Strides for CJD in honor of father

Perhaps the most widely recognized wedding tradition is the bride’s father accompanying her to the altar.

When Shannon Golden married Dominick Zandona in the spring, she had to come up with a different idea.

“After she walked down the aisle, the deejay played my dad’s voicemail that he had left Shannon. Everyone was in tears,” her sister, Michelle Golden, said. “Then, during my maid of honor speech, I compiled his voice to kind of be a message from our home videos. So he was there in spirit and definitely was not forgotten.”

Pat Golden of Bethel Park died in October 2016, just three months after he started showing signs of memory loss and less than two weeks before what would have been his 58th birthday, a victim of a rare brain affliction called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

This October, his daughters and wife, Helen, are organizing their fifth annual Pittsburgh Strides for CJD, an event that honors Pat and others whose lives were claimed by the disease while raising money toward research.

“We want to raise awareness, provide family supports and medical education so that, hopefully, one day there will be at least a treatment if there’s not a cure,” Michelle said. “But both would be great.”

The event, which supports the nonprofit CJD Foundation, is scheduled for Oct. 8 at the South Park Museum Building and adjacent track, 2100 Brownsville Road. Registration starts at 9 a.m. and announcements are at 10, preceding 2-mile walk.

Portraits of area residents lost to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease will be on display, and a candlelight remembrance takes place in conjunction with the announcements.

Michelle, Shannon and Helen Golden participated in a 2017 Strides for CJD event in Cleveland, and they decided to bring the concept to their hometown the following year. After taking place virtually in 2020, the Pittsburgh event returned to South Park last October with plenty of participation.

Since then, Shannon not only was married, but she and Dominick are expecting, well, children.

“When Shannon told my mom and me, it was so exciting,” Michelle, who teaches fifth grade at Archangel Gabriel Catholic School in Robinson. “Then it took a moment, and I just cried because I realized my dad wasn’t going to be here to see the twins. He would have been such an awesome grandfather, too.”

To register for Strides for CJD or donate to the cause, visit secure.qgiv.com/event/strides-2022/team/898047. For more information, contact Michelle Golden at pittsburghstrides@outlook.com.