Cracks: My Dad, Parkinson’s and the Hope of Christ

The doctor asked my dad to extend both hands, palms down and hold still for 5 seconds. Seated facing toward the doctor, he took a deep breath and extended his arms forward. His right hand held steady. His left hand did not. Tremors — twitchy vibrations from his elbow down to his fingertips — flooded his left arm.

My dad has Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is a neuro-degenerative disorder that causes uncontrollable movements and difficulty with coordination. As the disease progresses, patients may develop sleep issues, depression, and cognitive decline. There is no known cure.

Later, my dad was asked to step outside into the hallway and walk in a straight line to the nurse who stood 10 yards away. Dad tried, and then drifted steadily toward the wall. I walked back into the doctor’s office. I did not need to see more.

Looking back on that day, I experienced a crack. Cracks are moments when our bedrock beliefs fracture. They happen when the person we knew, or the future we assumed, or the life we pursued, become disfigured.

For 24 years, my dad was the family’s Xanax that absorbed pain and effused comfort. He was sturdy and strong, capable and resilient. These weren’t personality traits subject to change; they were character traits tied to his identity. But there he was – hands shaking, struggling to walk, diagnosed with a disorder that leads to decades of decline. How? Why? Crack.

Steve Jobs and Our Cultural Vacuum

When Steve Jobs was 13 years old, he saw a picture of two starving children from Biafra in a magazine. The future founder of Apple went to his pastor and asked if God knew about these kids. His pastor answered “Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.” The pastor implied that God did not want to intervene. Jobs stormed out and never stepped foot into a church again.

Like Jobs, our culture recoils at reductive explanations for suffering. Platitudes like “God has a plan” and “everything happens for a reason” appear trite and unempathetic. Without these meanings, however, we’re left with a vacuum.

Paul Brand spent the first part of his medical career in India and the last part of his career in the U.S as an orthopedic surgeon. He wrote “In the United States, I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs. Patients lived at a greater comfort level than any I had previously treated, but they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it.”

What Jobs sought from his pastor, and what Brand noticed was lacking in his patients, was a meaning attached to suffering which can justify the pain.

Death and Resurrection

However, it was not merely suffering which needed to be justified in that hospital room. Beneath the surface hurt of seeing my dad vulnerable and weak, lied the lurking sense of his mortality. I wasn’t afraid of Parkinson’s that day; I was afraid of my dad’s death.

Ireneaus, the second century Christian thinker, once said “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Because God’s glory is displayed by bringing life from death, I can respond to the quaking fear with a greater faith. While my subconscious hope that my dad would never die has been shattered, I have a deeper hope still.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body means that my dad, by faith in Jesus, will overcome the grave. One day, he will walk straight to Jesus and he will stretch out his hands to touch the Lord of Love. This time, clothed in resurrection glory, his hands will be still while his heart is moved.

Cracks: My Dad, Parkinson’s and the Hope of Christ