Art & Parkinson’s
Fear & Calm
Recitation
I’m standing at the sink doing the dishes and obsessively calculating all of the things that I have to do as a caregiver.
And I count the days, the hours, the weeks, the months, the years.
I count how much it will cost to stay in our house, to fix everything so the house doesn’t fall apart, so Hal doesn’t fall apart.
I count how many falls Hal has had this year, this month. I count how much money we have left in the bank, how much patience I have left, how many more years I will have to go on counting.
I usually zone out before finishing my mental list – or Hal breaks my listing-trance to remind me that I forgot to bring him his coffee and it is getting cold on the counter.
Why my compulsive list-making? To make the case for my purple heart? I wonder where the exit door is to this recitation.
Cracking
Hal is asking me how I’ve been doing. “In what way?,” I say. He says – and I know he’s going to say this – that he worries about me cracking. I ask what he means – although I know what he means. He says, “You know ..... tears ..... or rage.”
But I think I know what he’s really saying. What he fears is that I will crumble. He’s wondering if I, as the scaffolding holding us up, will collapse. That there will be nothing supporting this living, breathing entity we call us. That he will be abandoned. That WE will be abandoned.
But I told him I think the structure is holding. That it’s solid, despite often feeling that we have broken into millions of pieces.