There are days now when I carry her more than she walks.
Rebecca has Parkinson’s. It’s not the kind with textbook tremors. It’s the kind that steals slowly, invisibly—tightening her muscles, weakening her arms, locking her legs. She wakes in pain and fear, unsure if her body will respond to the messages her mind still tries to send. Her hands can’t grip. Her legs often refuse to move. Her confidence is evaporating, and her spirit—once defiant—flickers now like a candle in the wind.
And I—three-time cancer survivor, damaged and weary but still breathing—am left holding us both.
I often imagine what it must feel like to wake up and realize your body no longer obeys you. That a short walk might end in a fall. That your partner—your husband—is now your lifeline just to get from the bed to the bathroom. It must be terrifying. I know that.
And still, sometimes, I get angry.
Not at her—but at the helplessness. At the silence of doctors who don’t see what I see. At a system that offers no answers. And yes—sometimes at her, because I want her to fight. To rage. To resist the tide of this disease with the same ferocity I would.
But I’m learning something humbling, something hard:
Rebecca and I do not have the same DNA.
She is not weak. She is not giving up. She is doing the very best she can, in the only way she knows how.
And my way—the fire, the defiance, the noise—is not her way. So when I scream or shout, it’s not from cruelty. It’s from desperation. It’s from trying to save her from drowning, even when she’s already swimming the only way she knows how: quietly. Gently. Bravely.
She doesn’t want outside help. She wants me. Just me. And while I still breathe, she’ll have that. Because that’s what love requires when everything else falls away.
It’s not romantic anymore. It’s not soft. Love now is lifting her body out of bed. It’s steadying her trembling frame as she tries to walk. It’s dressing her when her fingers won’t work. It’s standing in the bathroom at 2 a.m., cleaning her, soothing her, reminding her: You are not a burden. You are mine. And I’m not going anywhere.
Some days, I cry in the shower. I scream into the silence of the car. I fall apart when no one is watching. But even in those moments, I remember who we are.
She carried me when cancer dragged me through hell. Now it’s my turn.
So I carry her.
With love.
With anger sometimes.
With fear, yes.
But mostly—with grace I didn’t know I had.
Because while I still breathe—
I will carry her.
Even when I don’t know how.
Even when it hurts.
Even when she can no longer fight the way I want her to.
Because she is still fighting.
And we are still us.
And love—real, soul-carving, bone-deep love—does not walk away.
It stays.
It lifts.
It learns.
It carries.