One In A Million
One In A Million
On May 7th I celebrated my 63rd birthday with my family. It was a good time and this birthday was special because this was our first public family get together since the Covid outbreak, it was nice to be a family again. I have never really cared much about age, except when I turned 50, I freaked out for some reason, oh the good old days, but why digress. I subscribe to the age is just a number school of thought. As I told my old roommate, my brain tells me I am 22 but my body says slow down cowboy, you’re ready for pasture. But the reality is I am slowing down, some of that is the disease itself, some of it is because I see my life differently. Every day is a gift, each morning I pick up the present, unwrap it and see what’s inside, and whatever it maybe I am grateful for it.
I was talking to my grandson Jordan’s girlfriend at my party when she asked me a question,” what are your goals for the upcoming year?”. My response surprised her, “I don’t look that that far ahead, I set daily goals, so that way I am never disappointed”. That’s when I realized how Parkinson’s has changed me. I have spent my whole life looking forward to the next summer or the next race, all the while denying myself of many experiences. One example is, I lived in Grants Pass, Oregon for two years and never drove out to see Crater Lake, literally a hop, skip, and a jump from Grants Pass. For those who don’t know, Crater Lake is an inactive volcano that throughout thousands of years has filled with water, it is an amazingly beautiful body of water that I have only seen in photographs. I was going to go see it next time, but next time never came. And to this day I have not seen it.
Fast forward 40 years and it is a different story. My wife and I have traveled twice to Sicily in the last six years. Once for a wedding and the other just to visit her family. Before leaving on our second trip, I told my wife I want to go to Mt. Etna, Taormina, and Agrigento, to this day, I think she is probably still a little surprised that I wanted to play tourist. For those of you, (which is probably all of you) who never been to Sicily it is an amazingly beautiful island, big green mountains, and beautiful green valleys. The interior of the island is sparsely populated with large stone towns on the top of the mountains overlooking the valleys below. You can see these towns for miles, or in their case kilometers. It is truly beautiful.
As we were driving to Mt. Etna, I looked across one the many valleys we crossed and saw smoke raising in the distance. I kind of got excited because I was going to an active volcano, sounds like a normal reaction to most people, but I am not most people. I have always vacationed with a purpose, race motocross, ride bicycles, etc.……, but this time it was different, I just wanted to see it. Mt. Etna is just 16 miles from the Mediterranean Sea and raises 10,900 ft into the sky, it is stunning to see in person.
As we started up the mountain, we drove through lava fields frozen in time from thousands of years of activity. The higher we went the more amazing the view, I just took it all in. But as we approached the top you could see the funivia in the distance, for you non-Italian speakers that’s the cable tramway to the top of the mountain. I looked at that and thought to myself, “I want to do that”. May not seem like such a big deal to you, but I am deathly afraid of heights even though my job of 38 years required me to frequently work from aerial lifts. But I was not nervous this time, I just wanted to experience the ride and see the view, and what a view it was. There was something very cool about standing on an active volcano, and I can say I did it.
You might be wondering what does this have to do with anything, people visit Etna and places like Etna all the time, what’s the big deal? The big deal was I was not there to do something, such as hike to the top (saw people doing it and no one looked very happy), I was just there to experience it, to see the beauty, to take it all in. And for me that is a big deal. The pre-Parkinson’s Mark probably would not have gone and even if he did, he would have been bored to tears and he certainly wouldn’t have ridden the funivia. The post-diagnosis Mark was in awe of the beauty that he saw that day and enjoyed the ride to the top.
There are very few good things about having Parkinson’s, there are two I can think of right off hand. First, the people I have met within the Parkinson’s community, from the people dealing with the disease, to the supportive husbands and wives, and care givers, and to the many people who provide services to enrichen our lives, these people are amazing. The second thing is, Parkinson’s has given me an appreciation for all the things I took for granted, my health, the beauty of the world we live in, my time in this world quite frankly. Every day is a new beginning and a chance for success. I don’t know where I will be one year from now, nobody does. But 24hrs from now I will know I reached my goal for the day, be it exercise, talking to my wife, or standing on a volcano, I will know I lived another day to its fullest, and that my friends is beautiful.
By Mark Hitechew