Tag Archives: Strength in adversity

One day at a time (Parkinsonsfight.com)

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Special thanks to Dan Gearhart for permitting me to share this….


A funny thing has happened to me lately, I have been growing physically and emotionally stronger every day fighting a disease that only takes and takes and never gives. I hate that I have this disease and will always wonder what would be different if it weren’t my fate. The answer is probably not as difficult as I think and really quite simple, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I wrote last year on my birthday about not knowing how good you have it until it’s gone; that couldn’t be anymore truthful then it is this very moment. As I watch all my years of hard work and personal investments unnecessarily fade into the black hole of divorce, it’s hard to find any positives.

If I hear one more person say how much better off I will be I’ll just scream! It just stings too deeply, I still believe divorce is such a selfish act, children deserve so much more than what they are being given.

When I look at their innocence in all of this dysfunction – is when I feel the most helpless. Communication is the key to any broken lock and very much still is. Text, email, tweet, instant message, does anyone communicate verbally anymore? We even break up on line with the hidden messages meant to hurt each other. My wife recently removed our anniversary date from her social profile in a final attempt of petty abuse, further trying to nullify the 3 blessings our union created. I simply hate non verbal communication with all the drones staring at their phones texting because no one can truly function speaking to one another anymore. I am just as guilty typing one thought at a time and trying to read body language through a glowing screen and trying to fix something that doesn’t want to or can’t be fixed.

Even with everything that I have gone through lately, I still remain blessed with so much more than many others. I have so many praying for me and my family, not to feel blessed. I know my children’s love for me and mine for them is an unbreakable bond in which at this point can never be compromised and will prevail. I’ve owned nice things, lived in a nice warm house and have a great job all while raising 3 beautiful and innocent children. BUT….. there’s always a but……I have Parkinson’s and it’s teaching me how to be stronger than I ever thought and who my true friends are. In turn, my legacy to my children will be that ‘I Never Gave Up’ and I taught them how to be strong, compassionate humans in the face of adversity. That is so much more than the majority of the world will ever have. I just will always ask myself over and over what could I have done differently? The answer is nothing; which doesn’t really answer my question but makes me want to fight even harder at this part of my story. Hopefully, all this is making me into a better and stronger man. If you’re not growing spiritually, physically or emotionally your just not growing at all and at times my growth has been stunted.

Whatever you can do, I will try to do better. I may not always succeed, but I promise you I won’t quit until someone can prove me wrong or I’m just not capable anymore. Determined is a word that is very powerful to me, and I don’t use it lightly. I have felt a calling to help people in pain and this may be the next doorway that I must walk through. I live with Parkinson’s everyday as I awaken from bed and start my daily routine, simply for the love of my children. You see, I’m still learning and living with it even while it’s being used against me in divorce.

What most people don’t understand about Parkinson’s is it’s a disease that affects 10 million different people 10 million different ways, it has symptoms that come in various forms with no two people alike. Also, for some, it comes with a great deal of physical pain. The physical pain I can take, it’s the emotional which is mostly devastating. However, during certain periods you’d never know I have it, but that

takes work. You have to become an expert at your body, figuring out triggers while at the time trying to remain calm and peaceful inside. The natural reaction when hurt is to hurt back. What would you do if you hit someone and they didn’t hit you back?  Does that make you weaker or stronger? At this point I would have to answer a little bit of both. As this disease keeps pushing me the only option I have is to push back and live with it. It’s made me stronger than I ever thought I could be but has also hurt me significantly. Recently a new friend gave me T-shirt that simply reads, “Hurt people hurt people, Blessed people bless people”. I’ll let you try and figure out which one I identify with.

Even though I struggle to find the blessing of a broken heart and family I question what good can come of this? My children don’t deserve this type of upbringing because my wife and I couldn’t figure it out, the difference is I can look into their eyes and say I tried with every fiber in my being to make it work. I really don’t hate anybody except those who intentionally try to hurt me or my family and pray to the Lord to forgive them as they can’t know what they do. I can only pray for her salvation as the bond we share is our children. Jesus died on the cross for our sins and I wouldn’t hesitate to lay down my life for one of my children to protect them from this ever increasingly evil world.

The thing is, this earth is just a pit stop and I am still the spiritual leader of my family. I’ve questioned my own religious beliefs in the past, struggling to get over my individual faith and hurdles. I still believe everything is part of God’s grand plan and if I am wrong at least I lived a life I could be proud of. My moto is ‘I always try to do the right thing’! If I’m guilty of sometimes being wrong, at least I admit it, but I try to never make the same mistake twice. One mistake I can not afford to make is with the salvation of my children, we have eternity to look forward to together. For now, I will love them as much as I can and be the best father and example I can be along this brutal pit stop. 

I have been afraid to write much because of pending divorce proceedings, but my story will be told and my testimony will be that much stronger as the truth ultimately reveals itself one day at a time! I can only try to be a better man with Parkinson’s than without. Fight Parkinson’s, it’s what I do!

Shattered existence….

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…Shattered Image.
 

“Do not be weary in well doing, for you will reap in due season………..if you faint not” – Galatians 6:9 (God’s Manual)

Phew! Happy new year!! It is the start of yet another wonderful year – 2016, it just rolls off the tongue and its so exciting that it is a leap year, makes it all the more special I dare say. Having my beautiful daughter explain the concept of a leap year is something that every parent would cherish because in those moments therein lies irrepressible and undaunting hope, and an embodiment of a greater tomorrow. When something occurs just once in four years, what are the odds that it will not be special. So I say it is a special and while I also acknowledge that it also represents time gone, my next task is evaluating and reviewing the time spent with the objective of improving on the good and discarding the bad. Resolutions? No! More like goals to me and being as regular as I can blogging, with improvement (one of the most obvious goals). There is also the goal to being a better me that I was last year, now that encompasses a huge lot….
 
I did not get to do anything since my last post in November (my unreserved apologies about that) because it was and will always be filled with lots of activities each persistently varying for my full attention and I am not the best at multi-tasking but I try to apportion and appropriate the limited resource that time is. Nothing has further drawn me closer to the fleeting and brittle nature of our existence with the births and deaths that closed last year. Now I unashamedly admit that regardless of how far a relationship you share with someone, a loss is painful and grief is not a sign of weakness. I have shared the pains with those who lost and celebrated the joys with those who were blessed, and either way, life does have its ups and downs. Fitting in requires something of a balancing skill if you want to have more than just a weak shot at living. I was sharing portions of my life story with a young friend and I told her that certain events occur in your live that reveal more of your humanity. Weeping is not exclusively for the weak, in actuality, it is a revelation and display of both empathy,compassion and our humanity.
 
I remember, not very vividly, the first time I beheld a mirror of my own back in the days ( it was kind of a luxury/’self centered’ icon) and taking out time to check out the acne, your own facial features (yep it was a handheld small one not the full length…) – funny now in retrospect but back then it was quite a task. Ensuring every hair strand is in place, the smile rehearsals for occasions that may come up, and even the different game faces, was it not a lot back then. And then like every other thing, it just happened, one day haste got the better of me and it slipped from my grip and hit the ground. Shards of glass all over the place…geez! being incensed does not quite capture my emotions, who I was incensed at did not even matter because it was all about the mirror. Getting the largest sliver, after hopelessly trying to childishly put it back together like a puzzle, I realized that the largest shard would have to suffice because trying to get a reflection from a put together cracked mirror is almost as frustrating as trying to leap into a moving plane (I am no Tom Cruise and even he had the necessary gear etc).
 
Attempting to put that shattered mirror together comes with some pain, glass is sharp (scars unequivocally attest to that) but in reality some things cannot be fixed. You did not make it in the first place even though you broke it, so move on. I have long ceased trying to fix others especially when it dawned on me decades ago (April 27, 1992 to be precise) that I so desperately needed fixing myself, but I choose to use that aspect of me that can encourage others to get a glimpse of themselves and realize that it is not as hopeless as it seems. Now having seen more than my fair share of medical experts and heard their droning, believe me when I say nothing is as hopeless as it seems even when you are the one responsible for the mess. Making the choice to be nice even when all the laws of science demand the alternative is not as easy as it is being written, said or read, you simply cannot do that all by yourself – you will drain yourself of your life energy. And so, I choose this year to continue to be nice even when I can not explain the reason to the next person. I choose to aspire to encourage even on the very bad days, and there have been quite a deluge of those days in recent times. The resonating joy is that I am doing things that I could not dare imagine some years ago. so for me, it is still a day – good or bad.
Looking back, like I tend to do, reminds me of how much time we spend expending so much negative emotions at everyone else and everything but ourselves that we fail to realize that regardless of how bad a situation may be, something can be salvaged from it. Without delving into my battle with Myoclonus, I have come almost a full 180 degrees based on the ongoing challenges I face and the ones I have overcome and still are. Joiv repeatedly tells me how unsettling it is the way I currently respond to situations, the usual reaction that was my trademark is slowly but evidently loosing its influence and I am not even aware. What I do know is that there is more to be gained treating others not just the way I want to be treated but maybe even better than I would (if that is possible). Does the truth have to be told? Oh most definitely, honesty is fundamental – the vehicle that conveys that truth is what you certainly have to make a choice on. Malleability was one of my best words in high school because of the definition and having it as a trait (from the human perspective) is also nice, being able to adapt to change without being too rigid or too amorphous goes a long way in living life easier. Pertinent to note is that whether we like it or not, change is indeed the only permanent thing in life. Word play is an art, and is best utilized by the greatest minds.
 
In the last few weeks – the closing of last year and the beginning of this year, I have seen more of the idiosyncrasies of individuals up, close and personal and it does not drive me as oddly (up the wall fast) as it used to because it is so much easier to live when you appreciate that people are simply a result of the choices they have and are still making, throw in handful of the experiences they have been through and how much they allowed themselves to be torn up or thrust up, accompany that with the lifestyle they presently choose and you have yourself a meal, oops a package/profile of that individual. Now, admittedly,  it has not been very palatable but it just helps in being able to process very fast and still choose to be nice without loosing your cool and reverting back to that inherent vicious brute that is somewhere hidden inside. For me; up, close and personal is certainly not the best of options for me (no thanks to myoclonus) but I have also seen that you are forced to make instant decisions on whether being a Christian is a garment that can easily be tossed aside when the gloves come off or that it is a lifestyle that inevitably calls for some sacrifices that are so difficult to make. Closed quarters just like adversity brings out the real you.
 
Our lives are more than a reflection of our physical semblance in a mirror, they are the instruments for living out a tale that will motivate others to move up to higher and more stable grounds…or not! We are all on this journey called life and no matter how reclusive you are, you will always encounter someone else and the moments you spend with that person might be all you may ever have, so what deters us from making those moments count. I have been bitter, resentful, unforgiving etc and so I can recognize them when I see them but I choose to learn from my own playbook (God’s manual) and not get into the trenches with those negative emotions because that right there is a leap backwards, a plunge into mucky waters…when we ought instead to be moving forwards and heading upwards. That is actually where the best is! Learn from the mistakes of history so that we do not repeat them, the history has been done however the future is still to be. We choose either to dwell continually in the past or make today count towards a better tomorrow, however the resource called time is not ours to fiddle with.
 
I have stopped trying to see a reflection of myself from the put together pieces of a broken mirror because it is just futility to the letter, instead focusing more on what I have learned from past reflection, I am moving on with as much spring as my knees and back can take, my cane is quite handy too. With a jaunty whistle to the tune in my heart, I move on because it is not so much as the reward that awaits me in due season, it is also about not growing weary and fainting – now therein lies the question that only me/you can answer. Where does my/your strength lie? And my response is still unchanged, my eyes are lifted up to the hills where His inexhaustible reserves of strength lies awaiting. For this new year, where do you choose to draw strength from because we both assuredly know that we cannot do it all by ourselves by any means. The harder we try, the less we have of ourselves to give but give we must so there had better be something good to give otherwise we will be so minimized; with all the negative emotions already overwhelming society, that our lives will count for nothing and to me that is the most pitiable thing that can ever happen to an individual.
 
Remember that there is just one of you amongst the billions in the world, make that count by aspiring to be the best you can be, there really is no competition save for walking in accordance with the purpose of Your Creator. Let go of striving to see ourselves in the warped reflection of broken mirrors, adjudging yourself by the expectations of people and just be YOU! Even when you think you have failed, get back up and begin again, you are in no competition with another you. My prayers are that this year will not just be the best year we have lived but that we will each plug into the life cord that flows from God and together live such a life that the world would be saddened to see us go.
 
מאי להאירובנעימות עליך עד שנפגש שוב .
Adios!