Snow Days
It’s just before 4:00 pm on a cold, wintry day in Austin, and a few patches of heavy wet snow still sit on the St. Augustine grass in my front yard. The previous day’s rare snowfall brought scores of neighbors outside and put joy on faces of all ages. It also caused widespread power outages across the city, leaving my family, and thousands of others, without any electricity or heat.
As the day’s last light slips away, I break out flashlights and headlamps, battery-powered lanterns, and several candles, and my wife Tracey, our two teenage daughters, and I prepare a simple dinner. Afterward, we all sit in front of our fireplace with its hissing gas logs and talk for what seems like longer than we have talked in a very long time.
No cell phones, laptops, or binge-watched TV shows. No FaceTime or Zoom with friends. Not even a good book distracts us. Instead, we sit close to each other by the fire, laughing and talking. We reminisce about the fun things we have done. We discuss issues of the day, our respective beliefs about things that matter to us, and a few other topics, too, all of which warms my soul and makes me feel at home.
In moments like these, I forget I have Parkinson’s.
Bridge Nights
After Tracey and the girls fall asleep wearing their winter coats and hats, I stay up and write for a bit, taking breaks to stare at the tall orange flames reaching for our chimney.
My mind drifts to Chris and Shae, a young couple we met just three weeks before. They looked to be in their late twenties, though it’s hard to know for sure. Living in a tent and under an interstate bridge can age you quickly.
Tracey and I were delivering some food our girls had helped us prepare for people in situations like the one Chris and Shae faced. By this, I mean those living not far from where we live, but in what has become a community of survivors who spend their days and nights in tents and under plastic tarps tied between several shopping carts filled with all their possessions. “The homeless” remains a shorthand way of identifying this population, but “human beings who have no roof over their heads, who lack adequate food, and who live exposed not only to brutal weather but also to frequent threats of violence” is the more accurate and personal description.
We greeted Shae and Chris amid the loud hums of heavy traffic above us, various piles of discarded clothing and other debris, and a faint sour smell of urine. As we gave them bags of food and engaged in forced conversation, I noticed that Shae was pregnant, as did Tracey, who told them we would have more food in a couple of days. After another minute or two of awkward conversation and periods of silence, we wished them well, said goodbye, and returned home.
Fireside Thoughts
Nearly ten hours have passed since we lost power. It’s almost midnight, and I can feel the temperature dropping as I stare into the fire. My eyes flit to Tracey and our girls bundled up in warm, clean clothes and covered by downed sleeping bags, and I’m taken back to our encounter with Chris and Shae. Turning on my headlamp, I write this poem:
As heavy traffic drones above their heads,
A winter’s sun begins to set,
Returning them to a nightly dread.
Their dirty tent under the interstate’s bridge
Protects them some from wind and rain,
Though not from cold or fear, nor pain.
We speak of the child’s pending birth, which
Puts a bent smile on her father’s face
As we offer them food and I hope for grace.
Whispering to myself, “It should not be this way,”
I wonder if they will find a new place to stay,
Or have to settle for a bigger tent.
Future Memories
When I finish writing, I turn off my headlamp, close my battery-drained laptop, and again stare into the fire. My thoughts shift again.
It occurs to me that when I struggle with having Parkinson’s and with how I can best live with it, or when I worry about what may lie ahead for my family and me, I want to remember the encounter with Shae and Chris. I want to remind myself of their burdens, their dearth of resources, their worries and fears; but also their courage and what may bring them happiness and hope. Also, I want to try my best to imagine what life is like for them day-to-day. I may not be able to imagine accurately, but I sure want to try.
I also want to remember them—Shae and Chris—in the hope that they and their newborn child are warm and safe, healthy and happy; and that they have begun to create new and better memories than those marking the day we met. I don’t know their personal stories, and I wish I did. I know these stories include much more than living under a bridge. Or how they got there.
Which is not altogether different than the stories of those living with Parkinson’s.
Most of all, I hope Shae and Chris are in a place that warms their souls and that they can call home.
__________
Allan Cole is a professor in The Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin and, by courtesy, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Dell Medical School. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016, at the age of 48, he serves on the Board of Directors at Power for Parkinson’s, a non-profit organization that provides free exercise, dance, and singing classes for people living with Parkinson’s disease in Central Texas, and globally via instructional videos. He also serves as a Community Advocate for ParkinsonsDisease.net, and as a regular guest contributor to the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Team Fox Blog, writing columns about living well with Parkinson’s. He is the author or editor of 10 books on a range of topics related to bereavement, anxiety, and spirituality. His latest books, Counseling Persons with Parkinson’s Disease (Oxford University Press) and Discerning the Way: Lessons from Parkinson’s Disease (Cascade), will be published in 2021. He is also working on a book of poetry titled In the Care of Plenty: Poems (Resource Publications), which will be published in 2022. Follow him on Twitter @PDWise.