Bucket
My friend Dale calls Parkinson’s his “Bucket of Sh!#,” or “Bucket” for short. He and I are close to the same age, and he’s had Bucket since 2015, a year or so longer than I have.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m with Dale in his hometown of Chicago. My family and I are here for me to work, but also to visit Dale and his family, other friends, and to tour colleges for my daughter Meredith while she and her younger sister Holly are on Spring Break.
We’re also going to see the Eagles on Saturday night, compliments of Dale, just as I turn 54!
Friendship
Over breakfast, Dale and I talk about his work running a large company, including some of the business challenges they faced last year and his hopes for the coming fiscal quarter. He talks about his awesome wife Hope and their 8-year-old twins, and I talk about my awesome wife Tracey and our girls—the things proud and grateful middle-aged husbands and fathers talk about when they get together.
We also share what symptoms currently trouble us the most: for Dale, it’s fatigue and slowness; for me, trouble sleeping and stiffness. And we discuss the latest research and treatment for Parkinson’s, the new documentary film that I’m making with my filmmaker friend, Vanessa, and some of the hopes I have for PD Wise.
My friendship with Dale is a source of great happiness and meaning for me, not to mention laughter and fun. Our time together enriches my life.
Later this week, Tracey, Meredith, Holly, and I will visit other friends in the Chicagoland area, people who also grace our lives with generosity and love, and whom we know only because we share the Bucket: Bill and Heidi, Abbe, and, I hope, Jimmy and Cherryl. We will surely talk about some of the things Dale and I talked about. This is what happens when those with PD get together. But we will mostly talk about other things we care about, find meaning in, aspire to, celebrate, puzzle over, struggle with, and search for—the stuff friends share.
Pot of Gold
Looking out of Dale’s office and seeing the freshly-died-green Chicago River, my mind flashes to one of the folktales associated with the worldwide celebration of Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint.
The story involves rainbows, leprechauns, and pots of gold. Leprechauns, you’ll recall, are small, grumpy people who enjoy playing tricks on you and are thus to be avoided. Solitary by nature, they live alone and work repairing the shoes of Irish fairies, who pay the leprechauns with golden coins that they collect in large pots. Supposedly, their pots of gold are found at the end of a rainbow, but because you can never locate the end of a rainbow, the only way to get the gold is to catch the leprechaun.
Before Parkinson’s, I never believed in leprechauns or fairies.
Nor did I imagine that a bucket of sh!# could pair with a pot of gold.
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Allan Cole is Deputy to the President for Societal Challenges and Opportunities at The University of Texas at Austin, where he also serves as the Bert Kruger Smith Centennial Professor in Social Work in The Steve Hicks School of Social Work and, by courtesy, as professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Dell Medical School. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016, at the age of 48, he is the author or editor of many books on a range of topics related to chronic illness, bereavement, anxiety, and spirituality. His latest books are Discerning the Way: Lessons from Parkinson’s Disease (Cascade), In the Care of Plenty: Poems (Resource Publications), and Counseling Persons with Parkinson’s Disease (Oxford University Press). Follow him on Twitter @PDWise.