Don,
I understand both your frustrations and your pain in watching someone else
do something you love to do, and having to hear someone tell you "it's for
your own good"
>From the time I was 14 until I turned 21, Don I was in a rodeo 2 or 3 nights
each week, every  week, regardless of what was broken or whatever else I had
going on - rodeo was my hobby, it gave me extra spending money, and it was a
large part of my identity. As I broke different body parts and became unable
to do one event, I was just switching to other events I could still
participate at. However, it finally got to the point I was literally risking
life and limb to compete and I had to stop.. Thats been nearly 20 years ago,
and I still can't watch rodeo for enjoyment - my enjoyment wasn't in the
watching, it was in the doing.
  When I quit rodeoing, I began to raise and train my own horses, and while
it wasn't the same, it was a challenge, and it was close to the same
activities, and I grew to love it also. For the next 18 yrs, I raised my own
babies, trained them, showed them, or sold them to others to show, and I
took a lot of pleasure in the quiet reputation I built up - a horse trained
at double a would be a good one who would do exactly what we told them it
would do... and then my body began to quit on me again, and now my family is
telling me you don;t need to be doing that anymore, you are too old or too
sick etc., or they are "helping me" by doing parts of the training I loved
to do. And it does hurt to see someone else doing "my job".  My wife
recently told a marriage councilor that she just wanted to help me, she
needed to help me, and to keep me from falling. Its hard to accept that she
has a need to help, when I really don't always want her help, even thought I
usually need her help.  As I told her, there are sometimes when its better
to let me fall, then help me up, than to keep me from falling, and making me
feel like a failure.
I am telling you all this so you will understand that I DO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE
FEELING. Now, having said that, when I look at things from my family's point
of view, I have to admit they have needs too, and some of their needs are to
make life as easy as they can for me.  I feel sure that is part of what
Vivian and the girls are trying to do for you.  And if we are honest with
ourselves, we can't do as much as we use to do - the spirit may be willing,
but the body just wont's work like it use to.
My suggestion for you may or may not work, but maybe this will give you some
ideas to think of on your own. From what you have said, you love to work
outside, but that is getting harder. Can you start some indoor houseplants,
or a raised garden, or maybe start growing some transplants, and then
letting someone else plant them in the yard for you? From the letters I have
seen you writing lately, I suspect you are spending lots of time thinking
about all the things you can't do anymore, and that is OK but it doesn't do
much to make us happy.  How about you and I visiting and trying to think of
some things you can do which might make you and Vivian happy. My email is
[log in to unmask],  my home phone is 409-563-4049, and my icq is36197573.
lets visit and see if we can't kick the blues a little further away.  I
evidently don't have Parkinson's disease, just the appearance of Parkinson's
with something else causing the damage, but I still get a lot form the list,
and I dont want to give up all my friends I've made here.  Please get in
touch with me, and we will cheer each other up, OK?
Tex