Author: Michelle Terrill Heath

Tremors make living hard. For Andy, it began innocuously in only one finger and seemed like an annoyance. After a year, it grew into the life altering condition people with Parkinson’s live with and that makes friends wonder how they can live that way. Tremors […]

What I see as the cruelest aspect of this disease is when a patient accepts and allows that their symptoms isolate them from life and therefore live in “otherness” leaving so called healthy people to carry on without them. For Andy and me, Parkinson’s has […]

Being diagnosed with an incurable disease doesn’t mean your life is now on a downhill trend forevermore. I think a lot of us suppose this to be our fate but my experience has shown me that it is not true. We’ve learned so much living […]

Last night I woke up to laughter. It was Andy laughing in his sleep and I pushed myself into consciousness to truly hear him. Parkinson’s has taken his voice and that includes his laugh. It’s been eight and a half years since I’ve heard him […]

I felt completely welcome which surprised me because I was plopped in the middle of a house that was not my own and I needed help to do everything. Some experiences are so profound that words seem inadequate to describe them. I’ll try anyway. Arriving […]

-The starkness of the gaping hospital door I saw as I lay in the ambulance waiting for Brendan to come out and the relief finally seeing his silhouette coming towards me. I lay in that bed for ten days.  Just before the ambulance came to […]

My longing to write, to speak and to walk urgently got my attention. The only thing I knew for sure was that I needed to learn new ways to be. While laying in a hospital bed, I was graced with a large window next to […]

Change is not our enemy- nor does all suffering have to be. Both are the most powerful tools we have to grow into our own lives and fulfill our destinies. My Dad died. He was old and had lived a wonderful life, he didn’t suffer […]

Meeting my Dad’s new presence has broadened my own field- the ground where I stand. My Dad’s absence, since he died, has left room for another kind of presence. When I lived in his home for a month with my Mom his presence was happy, […]

Joseph Campbell advises us to, “LIVE JOYFULLY IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD.” 40 years ago in August 1982, I was pregnant with Andy’s and my first child. We came to Taos for the first time to explore the idea of birthing our baby in […]