“What did I gain from the WPC?” Parkinson is a very
isolating disease. Your world grows smaller, and slower, while around you, the
people you know, and love, are rushing, accomplishing, doing, at what for you
is now a dizzying pace. It’s hard to explain to anyone not battling the
slowness and stiffness of PD what it’s like to wake up in the morning and literally
force your feet to move. You want to crawl into bed and do nothing, but you
know that doing that would be a death sentence, that it’s crucial to get up and
go, be with other people, exercise, work, and accomplish. Parkinson’s forces
you to live in a slower reality. Things that once upon a time you were able to
do without thinking now requires total concentration, which is difficult for others
to understand.
At the WPC I was together with thousands of others like
me. I didn’t have to feel embarrassed if it took me a few moments to find the
courage to step on to the escalator, or walk across the room. The people there understood
me. They were there, together with me, battling the same enemy.
But it wasn’t just the camaraderie, the sense of
belonging. There very air was charged with optimism. It pervaded every
conversation, lecture and workshop. We felt unified, that we were in it
together, and that it is our obligation to do everything in our power to keep
ourselves healthy, to continue living our lives to its fullest, despite our
limitations. It was like being part of a gigantic cheering squad, urging me to
stretch to my utmost.
The lectures and workshops touched on almost every aspect
of living well with Parkinson, but even more, they gave me, as well as the
thousands of others who had come because they believed that it’s possible to
continue living well, despite PD, a feeling of hope.
Of course all of this was possible for me, as a religious
Jew, thanks to Sparks of Life. I don’t know how I would have survived without their
three glatt kosher meals (with a mashgiach tamidi!) each day. And it was
wonderful to have a quiet area of my own, in the middle of this enormous, busy
conference, where I could relax and socialize with other frum Yidden, who, like
myself, were facing the challenge of Parkinson from a place of emuna and
bitachon. Thank you Rabbi Gruskin. Thank you Sparks of Life.
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