After a severe cold snap, it's a welcome warm Friday afternoon. We're on the semi-famous mall enjoying a long-postponed promenade. A woman, in her seventies, stops us. "Can you help me?" I'm embarrassed to confess that my first reaction to her plea was that she must be one of our many panhandlers. But not so. She continued: "It's my husband, he has Parkinson's, can you help me get him to the car?" He, Bill, was standing frozen, unable to speak, unable to move, his balance precarious. "Two years ago," she said,"he was robust. He's having a bad day." And indeed he was. I took Bill's left arm under the shoulder, his wife the other arm. Lynn grasped my left hand and carried Bill's useless stick, and together we shuffled him infinitely slowly and gently to the curb. "I thought we could go out for coffee," she said, "but I was wrong." While we stood quietly, Bill's wife went to fetch their car which was parked only fifty feet away. She backed it to where we stood (Lynn now supporting Bill on his right side). We helped Bill into passenger seat. His wife buckled him in.
I asked her, "do you have help?' "Yes, she said, "friends." "Do you have children?" "Yes, but they don't live nearby." She thanked us generously and drove off.
I was sad for both him and her. He, because his dreadful disease is going to kill him very soon. And she, because her life now consists of morning-to-night care taking -- in bed, out of bed; dressing and undressing; into a comfortable chair for a while and then and out of it; brief awkward walks; three times a day lifting the spoon to his lips. And what's known in the care taking trade as "toileting."
I'm convinced that she doesn't know how bad he is. Caretakers are always behind, always catching up. If she knew, she'd have had a wheelchair at the ready. He needs constant care-- not just family or friends, but professional assistance. Can they afford a place in a memory care facility or nursing home? Not everyone can.
Afterward the incident, we went to a coffee shop -- a normalizing activity for us. But, sitting there, I was shaken. Certainly profound sadness for the ill husband and the encumbered wife, and in addition a touch of personal PTSD.
And then the inevitable pondering. "To this favor must we come." It's not just Bill. We're all doomed -- even that cute infant in the next booth, rapturously examining her fingertips. A host of diseases, some as bad as Parkinson's, waiting at the door, waiting.
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