Now, for something a little more serious - this is
something I wrote way back in the caveman days of this
list. Several people have asked me to drag it out, dust
it off and repost it. The emotions are even more true
now than they were back then.

Date: 11/08/95 16:28
From: <Jerry Finch >
Subject: Loving and Sexuality

    There was a time, when I was younger and more
spirited, that my
relationships bounced from one woman to another. The
sense of youth, of
new-found masculinity during the late teens and early
twentys, seemed
endless. Some people might say that I was out to prove
my masculinity, but I would argue against that. Doubts
didn't exist, just the desire to
experience.

   Twenty-three years ago, I meant someone in whom I
found all the
qualities that I could ever want in a relationship.
Within days of our meeting, it seems, the semi-insane
drive to wander from one relationship to another came
to a halt. I suddenly became at ease with myself, and
the raging fires of youth became the gentle flame that
kept warm the desires of our marriage.

There has never been a great urgency in our
love-making. We were secure
in our love for one another, gentle and caring in our
desires. Frequency
reports from psychologists, who had little else to do
other than ask intimate questions, had no affect on us.
When we wanted, we did. If we missed two weeks, it
didn't matter. Raising two daughters while both of us
worked, the stress and strains of day to day life
sometimes made the quiet moments between lights out and
sleep the only time that we had to ourselves, moments
that we spent in soft whispers or in a gently hug.

 As the seasons change so do our lives. As much as we
try to hold on to a lifestyle that we find enjoyable,
so to do outside forces place before us the obstacles
that we know as challanges. For some it might be the
loss of a job, the death of a child, the pain of
cancer. In my case it was a diagnosis of Parkinson's.
I've gone through the anger, the guilt and the
depression. I fought and yelled and screamed and kicked
and finally came to realize that nothing I could say or
do would make the monster go away. It's here to stay.
Like an unwanted live-in guest, it's here every waking
moment, wanting attention, demanding recognition,
insisting on being a major factor in my life.

   There is no doubt that the physical problems
associated with PD affect virtually every facet of our
lives. We lose our jobs, we stop driving cars, former
friends drift away and, if we are lucky, new friends
come. It would be unreasonable to expect it not to have
a major influence on our marriage. The balance of
shared responsibility, of equality in duties, becomes a
thing of the past as we enter into the phase of
caregiver/patient. Slowly the duties of marriage, of
day-to-day living, become more the responsibility of
the caregiver, as the patient becomes unable to do the
things once done with ease.

   Being a male, I can only relate this from a
masculine point of view. I would think that females
feel a parallel sense of loss, a deep change in the
sense of sexuality. The essence of manhood, the
self-assured acceptance in the world of football and
cars and Saturday afternoon lawn mowing, of having a
few beers with the guys, of hunting and fishing and
hanging around the hardware store fade into history as
the new world of medications, stumbling walks and
shaking hands moves in as a replacement.

    Within the relationship of marriage, the essence of
sexuality also
changes. The questions arise within ourselves of our
mates' desire within the scope of our physical
appearance. Of course we are the same person, but love
and desire sometimes take separate paths. The concept
we hold of ourselves becomes different, feelings of
self-worth, of acceptance, become clouded by our
disability.

   This is when love must change. It must become wider
than before, more
willing to accept the faults, the failures and the
physical appearences.
Either accept or fade away, to become just another
memory. Love-making
either comes from the desires of closeness, caring and
deep bound love or a desperate attempt to regain a lost
past.

    As often as we try to rise above the physical, we
are reminded that we are physical. We cannot deny our
existence - physically, spiritually or sexually. To do
so is to admit defeat to our disability, to give up a
part of our lives, to let part of ourselves die.

    I am blessed to have a caregiver which shares with
me the strength of love that allows us to see sexuality
beyond the physical. On the porch at sunset, watching
the pastels of the day give way to the stars of night,
or at three in the morning when I scream out in pain
from a combination of leg cramps and twisted muscles
and tremors, she is there, holding and caring, willing
to accept me for what I am. When our desires lead to
caresses and nowhere else, I know our love is deep
enough to find satisfaction in a gentle touch.

    But still, somewhere in my mind, are the doubts.
Why? What if? Knowing it's going to get worse, I try to
see into the future. Five, ten years from now, what
will we be like? What if the situation were reversed,
if she had the disability and I became the caregiver?

   Sexuality and PD is a very sensitivity subject for
each one of us. It
hurts to know what the future holds, to see others far
more advanced in the progression than I. That isn't
what I had in mind when we married, when we had our
first child. It isn't what I pictured for retirement,
for our "Golden Pond."

   When it comes to surveys and statistics, I think it
really doesn't
matter that I don't have 2.3 orgasm per week arising
from 3.4  attempts. That is not what my life is all
about. At this point in my life sex and love are the
same, they are held together in the eyes of my wife, in
a smile, in a soft and warm kiss.

How many times have we made love? Once. It began the
moment we met, and
will not end until we each have take our last breath.