Many years ago I knew a man with a
booming voice, a larger than life, to me anyway persona. He was my
grandfather, my mothers dad, who she always said I was just like. A
compliment I have always relished. I didn't get to spend the time
with him I would have liked but I did get to see things, and in
hindsight are all to familiar. He passed away in 1973, I was 21 at
the time in the Air Force a continent away and didn't get to say good
bye but there are things I saw then that I see now everytime I look
in the mirror.
I remember back when I was young this
man ate his peas of a knife, something that was evidently quite
popular among certain people, of german decent I think, but he did
this. He had a booming voice I remember him yelling at my cousin that
he and my grandmother raised as their own. The only cousin I I have.
that knew him that is older than me. I saw a steady decline in him in
the very short time I can recall from those years. He was a
carpenter, back when you sawed wood by hand, you plannd boards level
by hand. It took physical strenght and knowledge to build, From my
early memories to my last was about 15 years and in that time I saw a
man go from larger than life to a whispering, shuffling, shaking
shell of his former self. No ome ever said Parkinson's, not really
sure if they even knew it then. They were very poor, he may have been
a good carpenter, but in the early 60's there was not much to help a
fellow who had something going wrong, that even today takes more
intuistion than skill to diagnose.
It is so hard to imagine what it must
have been like to for no understandable reason just deteriorate from
a useful human to a guy who just needed to sleep. In the later year
that is what I remember most is his always sleeping and the chair
that no one else could sit in because it was where he spent most of
his time. How difficult it must have been for my grandmother to
become a caregiver and have no idea whar was happening to them. I
never got a chance to talk to my mother or anyone else in the family
about this because they are all gone now. Being the oldest of the
family left, there is no one to ask what happened, what they knew,
anything.
I have developed a very powerful love
of woodworking, I have no idea why, never did before, I have also
developed Parkinson's.I just went to the basement to get somethings I
had been working on on, and as I shuffled off to the steps it hit me
like a ton of bricks, I move like he did, I talk like he did, my
mother was right I am just like him. I've known for a couple of years
what wa goiung on, but I am lucky, there are treatments I haave
available to me he never dreamed of. How terrible to have this and
nothing anyone could do. Levedopa came into being a few years before
he passed away, my guess is being poor kept him from finding any
relief, and it may have been to late anyway. Somethings haven't
changed so much in the years that followed though in this country. If
you are poor you are still pretty much on your own, drugs that can
help and make a difference are, if you don't have good insurance are
still out of reach for many. I get for example my Azilect for free
now, $15.00 a month till I hit my max deductible, for some it's
$900.00 per month.
I don't know if any of this is
hereditary ot not but I know that caring and compassion are
generational and we are a generration that seems to not care anymore
.Is it so hard to remember our grandparents and the hell they went
through before SSA and Medicare, why do we seem hell bent on going
back there? I for one remember a time when we visited my grandparents
and ate canned ww2 surlpus meat and surplus cheese. Is that where we
want to go again I pray not.