In the shadows, I stay for a while.
I barely notice my shaking hand.
But they talk about it sometimes.
So, in the darkness, I must remain.
The bearded man in white gave it a name.
Parkinson disease, he once said.
I never truly understood, but
Inside, my heart painfully bled.
From the shuddering, I began to stiffen.
It feels like I’m stuck on the floor.
It’s hard to move, eat, to say I love you.
So, I don’t say it anymore.
I never chose to be this way.
Why is this happening to me?
I want to shout out, everyone is wrong.
It will be ephemeral, you will see.
I searched for the medicine that would cure.
The doctor told me there is no such thing.
Plants, self-styled protocols, illegal drugs
What any deceitful one could bring.
Now, I found myself filled with despair.
There is no such light to embrace.
If no medicine can solve this,
I should accept my inevitable fate.
Then, on a cloudy gray afternoon,
I received an old-fashioned letter,
Written: “You can rule the world.
Get up, pull yourself together.”
In his words, a wise parkinsonian man
Told me the history of his life.
Unexpectedly, filled me with hope,
That was also a little bit of mine.
Then I realized, the day was not so cloudy.
I can deconstruct the darkness I’ve built, then.
I am a man with a disease.
But I am not a diseased man.
If mere words could enlighten me,
I might as well spread this care.
How many others are veiled by prejudice?
Now, I hold a faith that too, I can share.
The unseen light is now in my grasp.
I can, everywhere, move, eat, and walk too.
I have some limitations, indeed.
But I remain still saying “I love you.”
- Received January 21, 2023.
- Accepted in final form June 2, 2023.
- © 2023 American Academy of Neurology
