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Barbara(?) Rager's beautifully written and passionately felt piece "All
spirituality lost" is a poignant description of one of PD's more profound
moments of truth.  But intense as that moment is it is just a moment.  It
shows us what we are and what we have been in the past - but it does not
define or decide what we will be in the future.  Barbara envisages a future
in which her spirit rages incessantly against the injustice of it all, a
future in fact in which she never accepts the reality of her situation.
This is a brave but unnecessary stance. It is also an illusion. It hasn't
happened yet, it is a chimera - and dangerous. To slightly paraphrase Yeats,
if we feed the heart on fantasy, the heart grows brutal from the fare,and we
are in danger of there being "More substance in our enmities, than in our
love".

Fortunately Barbara's vision is just that, a vision. The future is not
locked in - the choices are not reduced to rage or resignation, anger or
acceptance. And using the facilities provided to assist the disabled need
not be a symbol of defeat.

As with everything else in life we determine what something means to us. If
we see having Parkinson's Disease as something to be ashamed off, a
punishment (and, by implication, a sign that we are guilty of something)
then using a disabled parking bay, or the disabled seating area puts our
shame and guilt on public display.  Conversely if we see ourselves as
members of an elite, chosen to carry the load of Parkinson's Disease because
only we and a few others are capable and worthy of so doing, the use of
disabled facilities becomes a symbol of superiority and a source of pride.

Somewhere in between is the situation in which a physically disabled but
spiritually healthy PWP uses
the facilities provide for the disabled because they need to in order to get
on with the business of living.

Parkinson's Disease is neutral - that someone has it tells you nothing else
about them - how they deal with it reveals the person. It is probably
presumptuous of me to say so but I suspect Barbara will deal with it very
well.

Dennis.