About my dad...

Around the time I graduated high school, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. This was hard news for the family and for me. There is no cure for Parkinson's. We didn't know what the future would hold.

But My dad responded well to the Parkinson's drugs and his favorite activity, riding a bike, was one of the best things to fire the important neurons and slow the degeneration. It looked as though he could live a somewhat normal life.

But after about 20 years, things started to change. The Parkinson's morphed into a completely different type of dementia. This has been heart-breaking beyond anything I have ever experienced.

As I do with most of my hard experiences, I decided to write about it. Writing has been a tool for me to process my difficult feelings for many years. In this case, I found that it was also a way that I could

honor my dad, and remember him as the man that we knew, not the wreckage of advanced dementia tearing through his brain.

Originally I was going to write a book. But that is a lot to bite off. I have decided to share my writing here, in my blog. Maybe someday I'll get it bound together with real paper that you can touch, but for now I'll deliver these words to you through the screen that you are reading this on.

I would love feedback and reflections; or if you knew my dad and you want to send me your stories of my dad, I would love to have them and, with your permission, share them here in some way.