The\nchairs were a seemingly long walk away from my location not far from where we\nneeded to get the boarding passes. The luggage had been checked through to\nDublin already, surprisingly without proper identification. Just the distance\nfrom the luggage drop off at the street to the line for getting the boarding\npasses confirmed and securing the service of a wheelchair had proven\nchallenging to my joints and muscles that were now cramping down in protest.\nThe car was being parked as I was waiting for the rest of the travel documents\nand an opportunity to be escorted through TSA and on to the boarding gate. Squirming\nuncomfortably on the edge of the trash can, there appeared a couple heading\ntoward the check in desk near where I waited. He was holding her up on one side\nas she twisted and turned and bent herself almost halfway to the floor. I\nwatched as they passed by saying hello with enough accent for me to perceive\nthem as British. It stood to reason that they were British since the flight was\nheading direct to London-Heathrow from Raleigh-Durham. We soon secured our\nboarding passes and were told where to find a seat as we waited for the\nwheelchair assistance. They were there also. As I sat down, she looked at me\nand said, Parkinson’s is a challenge, isn’t it? She had perceived my\nchallenge correctly as she had experienced the walking shuffle I demonstrated and\nthe otherwise slow movements. She was experiencing extreme dyskinesia appearing\nthat she was trapped in a strongly twisted body, with her head moving back and\nforth in a disjointed fashion. She was so pleasant and possessed such a\npositive inflection in her voice as she talked about the challenges she had\nfaced. She had been diagnosed with PD at age 32, some 24 years ago. Her husband’s\nsmile and affirmation seemed to embrace her in a cocoon of love and admiration.\nThey were returning home to the UK after a relatively long visit to NC and seemed\nto be taking each day at a time and each challenge that arose as it needed to\nbe tackled. We were heading to Ireland for a week of adventure, renting a car\nand visiting sights we had never seen, as we drove around the towns and\nvillages mostly in the South of Ireland. She reached out and grabbed my hand\njust as we were each about to be seated in our respective wheelchairs. The\ntouch was one of warmth and reassurance that everything is okay, even when the\nmost inconvenient of symptoms make themselves known. Her affirmation was just\nwhat I needed to remind myself that the challenge is not tomorrow, but the\nmoment in which we are living. A question I often ask myself is, how do I live\nin a way that shows the love and grace that God has so abundantly given me?\nThe woman whose path I crossed while on this journey to Ireland inspired and\nenlightened my heart in a way that multiplied my gratitude for having met her, if\neven so briefly. She will be in my prayers often as a symbol of gratitude for\nmeeting people who inspire and encourage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The chairs were a seemingly long walk away from my location not far from where we needed to get the boarding passes. The luggage had been checked through to Dublin already, surprisingly without proper identification. Just the distance from the luggage drop off at the street to the line for getting the boarding passes confirmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkinsons-disease-rants-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}