Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Fear
Standing at our kitchen island, enjoying my morning bowl of cereal, I look out the window and see the day’s first light claiming its place amid a row of trees. I alternate slow rhythms of rocking back and forth and side to side. You might also say I’m swaying.
My newly discovered “moves” are effects of dyskinesia, which literally means abnormal movement. Ironically, dyskinesia is caused by medication we who have Parkinson’s take to help us move better.
The problem is that as the illness advances, the efficacy of the medicines that help you move fluctuates, and these fluctuations make you move too much, or at least less smoothly and more erratically.
I rock back and forth, move side to side, and sway. When my adrenaline increases, or when I am nervous, my dyskinetic pace increases, too. There are medicines for it, but I don’t take them yet. My dyskinesia is mild.
My wife Tracey tells me she does not notice it. But I notice it.
I wonder if others notice it, too.
Almost every person I know who lives with Parkinson’s fears dyskinesia. I was no exception. Who wants to rock, sway, bob, wiggle, or move in any erratic and uncontrollable way? I remember the first time I saw Michael J. Fox’s dyskinetic moves. It was when he testified before Congress about the importance of funding Parkinson’s research in 1999.
He swayed and wiggled in his seat.
I had a heaviness in my chest.
What could be worse? I thought.
Loss
Twenty-four years later, I sit in a church pew with a few hundred others in downtown Austin. We have come to mourn and celebrate the life of our friend Chris Sanders, who died unexpectedly at age 52. Smart, interesting, kind, and handsome, Chris was a gifted architect who had a heart for adventure and an enviable spirit of resilience. He’d come back from a stroke he suffered while in his 40s, and with no visible lasting effects.
Two of Chris’s close friends, including one from college at Texas A&M and one an architect partner and colleague, offer tender, heart-felt eulogies. Next will come the minister’s homily and prayers.
My wiggles have started.
As a younger man, I would be alternating between being preoccupied with my wiggles and thinking about why Chris died so young; why people suffer; why some people get cancer, or MS, or Parkinson’s disease.
Now, I know there are no explanations that would satisfy me.
Love
Rather than being preoccupied by a list of unanswerable questions, I sit and reflect on this question:
Why do we live?
The answer is that we live to love and to be loved. It comes down to that. And as Robert Frost described it, “Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
We can and do add value to our loving and being loved. Other facets of life prove meaningful and serve as sources of joy: the cool things we do, the interesting jobs we hold, the beautiful music or art we create, and more. Still, whether it happens with our partners, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, or colleagues, a need to give and receive love remains at the core of being human.
Or it should.
I find that I can lose sight of the essentialness of love. I can become consumed by status, possessions, appearances, or other aspects of my life that eventually turn out to mean less to me than I thought they would or ever could.
Looking around the church’s sanctuary filled with people, it’s clear that many people loved Chris, and still do; just as we love Hannah, their children, Chris’s parents and younger brother, and many of Chris’s friends and colleagues–all of us there to celebrate a life and to mourn.
With my arm around my wife Tracey, both of us wiping our reddened eyes, I wiggle faintly in my pew. I think about who I love—Tracey, our daughters Meredith and Holly, my parents, Tracey’s family, friends, and colleagues.
I linger momentarily in my desire to tell those I love that they are loved—and even better, show them that they are loved—by me.
The cliché turns out to be true. We are here for such a short period of time.
We worry about things that really don’t matter all that much, if at all.
We overlook the love we can give and receive, especially when life is easy but also when life is hard.
Life
As the congregation sings the last hymn, “Morning Has Broken,” I remember that I’ll be having breakfast tomorrow with my longtime friend, Brad. He’s in town visiting from Charlotte, North Carolina, where he grew up.
Brad and I were roommates in college, at a time when we discussed things and shared experiences that you don’t talk about in church or in print!
I don’t get to see Brad as often as I would like, and he might say the same about me.
As we eat our breakfast tomorrow, reminiscing and retelling stories we know by heart—many of them crafted as young men trying to figure things out—I will tell Brad about Chris.
I will also be sure to tell Brad I love him.
____________
Photo by Jonas Weckschmied on Unsplash