How we walk through the wild(er)ness of love

On the shock and terror and wonder and beauty of it...

“I’m fighting for my life,” Gregory says to me,

lying beside me under the same white sheets and duvet cover we’ve been sleeping with for almost two decades. Over the last 3 years he has been determined to treat his Parkinson’s without medication. Fierce is his belief that he can heal himself through mindset, exercise, massage and an alternative diet, specifically, the one offered him by the Medical Medium (aka Anthony Williams) which specifically aims to cleanse the body of its accumulated toxic heavy metals (they are considered one of the causes for Parkinson’s).

As he has deepened his detoxification process over the past month, his symptoms have been intensifying. Using his body now is a constant struggle, a slow and achey battle against the tensing up which arises in the midst of the easiest tasks. Combing his hair, pulling up his underwear and shorts, eating his food: all these movements we healthy folks take for granted, are his most challenging labours. For a few days, I have been standing behind him and pulling up his shorts. Today I also help tuck in his t-shirt, after he tells me, “It’s so hard.”

Watching his snailpace climb into bed each night, as he summons the focus to lower himself down, slow-release his back to the mattress, then more focus to gerry-hoist the covers over his body makes my heart double-time several beats. So I start to mention the medication.

“Maybe it’s time Gregory. Your quality of life could be so much better.”

“I have believed in you and your writing even when you didn’t. I need you to believe in me now. I want more than the medication. I want to find a cure.” Fired at me in the kitchen while preparing his morning heavy metal detox smoothie, I listen to him and in my heart of hearts I want to believe him, to trust him. But what if the medication could give us five more years or even ten without the worst symptoms.

“I know you are afraid, and I would be too! But I just wonder if you are missing out on a body that could be less painful, more mobile. If we are missing out.” I am trying not to force it, but needing to express my concern.

Bearing his teeth and accusing me of polarizing, his face wrinkles in a red hot grimace, his hands balled into fists. “Why can’t you just encourage me?”

Help at the house of a dear dharma sister

That afternoon I drive fifteen minutes up the island to her house. We sit outside on her cedar deck, the sky blue, sun shaded by the arbutus bordering her garden. In our conversation she allows me to speak the conflict between allowing Gregory to make his choice and following his lead, and considering my needs given that this is “my life too”! Our exploration enables me to see how the choice to support him comes from a heart committed to Gregory’s journey, no matter my “position”. Returning home, I snuggled up beside him on the couch, looked into his beautiful sandy eyes and told him that I was a hundred percent behind him, whatever his choice.

So imagine my shock, and tenderness, the next morning, when he turns to me in bed and with all the courage of his previous desire to abstain, says “I can’t do this anymore, I am going to take the medication.”

All day after I was feeling so much: exhaustion, grief, disbelief, anxiety, fear, and more exhaustion, along with uncertainty of what will happen as we move into this next phase.

How will he do on the medication?

Will his symptoms improve?

What other symptoms will appear?

We hold hands in bed, grasp each other’s fingers.

Into each other’s eyes and soul we look and see we are holding each other up with our love. Again, he tells me “I am sorry you have to go through this with me. That you have to watch me.”

“It’s my honour,” I tell him, “ I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” And it’s true. Although it’s also true that sometimes I am afraid, and I want to run away. I think about the day after day of our lives from here forward and I fear for the difficulties that will come.

“One day at a time,” he tells me.

“I am committed to being here for you Gregory.” I smile back, my hands soft-palming his bearded cheeks.

I had no idea this was possible, the heartbreak, the sorrow,

the feeling of isolation, everyone else out there having a great “fucking” time while I pull up my husband’s pants….

and the joy, tenderness, surrender, as the heart opens

to being here for this brave and loving human soul who has been my caregiver, lover, fixer and organizer and champion.

Here we are, walking through the wild(er)ness of love. And we don’t know how it will go. Where the path will take us next. Only that we are on it together.