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Sandy... Ya know... that @^&! mask is just one more dehumanizing indignity, that PD slams us with over the years. I have often felt the need when I'm in a "heavy-duty-mask-day-mode" to be recognized by others as a living, breathing, ALIVE human being at those times. Years ago, when I first became aware that I had a PD mask at times, when I felt the need to have my presence as a member of the human race reconfirmed I'd go to a local mall where I'd stroll down the main concourse and meet the eyes of everyone glancing my way. And as our eyes met, I'd give 'em a great big ear-to-ear smile. I had to FORCE my face into those smiles, too, because the PD had such a grip on my facial muscles that without making the conscious effort to smile, I simply COULDN'T smile. A funny thing always happened when I'd make eye contact and smile at a stranger in the mall - they smiled back at me, and both they AND I continued to smile as we passed each other and walked on. Eventually smiling and facial movement became easier to do and once again became HABIT. But I still go to the mall to shop upon occasion and you can bank on it that when I'm there, I STILL stroll down the concourse making eye contact with stranger and smiling at 'em. And HEY - THEY still smile back! <smiling> Barb Mallut [log in to unmask],msn.com -----Original Message----- From: David and Sandra Norris <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Friday, June 11, 1999 9:38 AM Subject: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE LIFE >WHO IS THAT IN THE MIRROR > > >I walked by the bathroom mirror this morning and had an unpleasant surprise. >I did not know the person staring back at me. I saw the unmoving, frozen >face of another...another what, I have no idea. A stranger? > >Today's experience taught me a new meaning to the "masked expression". >Through eighteen years of parkinson's disease I have known the term "masked" >to be the inability to use facial muscles due to bradykinesia and rigidity. >Finding the stranger, hauntingly staring back at me, the masked expression >became the stranger that I would always see. > >Quite crazily I began to ask; "What have you done with Sandra?" Just as >quickly as I had asked, I saw a movement; it was fleeting, if at all. A >single tear fell from the strange face. I looked closer and there reflected >in the mirror were my eyes, conveying the sadness felt in my heart at the >realization that the masked stranger was going to be staying for awhile. > >Although the new and strange face looks rather old to me, old in years some >would say, I would prefer wise in pd years. The glimpse of the eyes add >familiarity, a warmness of life. The realization that they are my eyes >bring a calmness, a hope of knowing that just because the face is changing >the eyes remain the same. The inner soul is affected by the strange face; >but, desires to go on living. This soul desires and searches for a better >and brighter tomorrow in living with parkinson's disease. > >Who is that in the mirror? A strange face, with a knowing vision of a >brighter and better tomorrow. > >Sandra L. Norris >David and Sandy Norris > >"Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther >than it can see." William Newton Clarke >Sandy 38/dx'd for 11/had pd for 19yrs >