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Your letter, Ivan, resonated with me as follows: maybe it's because it's a disease of the brain and therefore especially scary. I think people might be afraid of our becoming demented (or maybe I'm projecting my own fear onto them) and therefore want to close their eyes to it all the way society does to the mentally ill who were thrown out of asylums in the 60's and left to their own devices in the streets, where they are so often ignored, and still live desperate lives in front of people with averted eyes. Don't you suppose some must just wish we'd die and get it over with? It's difficult to watch people disintegrate, especially when they need your help and can't get long-term care insurance and might begger you. I suspect we all know people like one of my friends who stopped trading rides to events with me when I told her I had PD. In fairness, I can't think of anybody else who has done this, but if, as they say, every letter to the newspaper represents 50,000 readers, then my ex-pal stands for a large group. I'm feeling depressed tonight, disillusioned --- I have a poetry reading coming up and some poet friends asked if they could read my poems for me because it's hard for them to understand me. So I've been dividing up my poems, 3 to each of 5 people. They are dear people and gifted poets and honor me by reading my work, but it still made me want to weep that I can't even do that. If I didn't have such a wonderful husband and children, I would find it harder -- but I feel guilty for not being the inspired cook, zooming-about housewife, jogger and docent, etc., I used to be. The doctor told me I should get large, sturdy shoes that tie. Ugh. I may no longer be a young Parkinson's patient but I know plenty of people years older than I am who are SO STRONG AND ABLE. P.S. I read something today I thought of just now when I reread your email: somebody wrote a letter to the editor suggesting that you don't judge a book by its cover, nor a person by THEIR cover. Nice, I thought. Liz