ALIVE with PURPOSE

Well here I am at the beginning of my new year. Yes, that's right, for the last four years I have considered New Years Eve as when I came home from the Unity Walk in NYC. I really don't know where to begin. I am really glad I went early, for I would have never crammed all of what I did into two days. Thursday I left home about three in the morning and headed for St.Louis International and American Airlines who treated me like royalty as they made sure I made it to New York's Manhattan Hilton in style. I got settled in and was off to the Parkinson Disease Foundation's Manhattan Office to see the PDF Quilt Project Panels for the first time. We went through them one by one, almost like a very slow moving slide show but we were able to touch and feel each send it's message of hope and promise. Each a different color and different style, just as we become so different in our fight to conquer or at least survive the battle with this disease. Each panel telling it's own story in it's own way from it's own source..Some were family trees with members who had passed or were still living with Parkinson's Disease. Some were just a beautiful picture of a place they go to when retreat is needed. Some showed pain in it's starkest form and then moved on to show the conquering of that pain to a sun filled sky. A quilt never means the same thing to two people, but it usually involves a touch and if there is a national symbol for Parkinson's it is the HUG.....to be able to Touch and Hug is our way of communicating our thanks.....Thanks for what? Thanks for taking the time to stop and listen to someone who has went silent. Thanks for opening a door for someone who cannot. Thanks for being a friend to someone who has none. Thanks for letting us finish our lives ALIVE with PURPOSE. love Pokie

PatientsLikeMe: Tell the World About Parkinson's Disease

PatientsLikeMe: Tell the World About Parkinson's Disease

Signs Of A Redneck Protest Sign

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Strawberry Fields Forever

"Strawberry Fields," the memorial to John Lennon in Central Park. This is where I started my first Unity Walk three years ago and where I will go and sit on the bench and think back to the sixties for just a moment before I carry on in the 2010's next week. This year more than any other year before the walk my mind is swimming with ideas for fund raising and writing and poems for the coming year....realizing that only superman could pull all that off and live. I am " very aware of the " paying forward " principle and believe in it. I have said long before anyone mentioned an economy crisis that we needed to "Get Back" "Get Back to Where we once belonged" It's simple if you try and rewarding in many ways. I'm not saying go back to the getto and get killed or deal drugs. I am saying "Get Back" inside where YOUR happiness is and make YOURSELF smile by paying BACK or FORWARD and creating your "Strawberry Fields Forever"..................love you Always Pokie

April Means Parkinson's

It seems impossible that it has been three years since this picture was taken and purely by chance did it and I turn out in this fashion. I was at St Louis Airport waiting to get on a plane to New York City by myself, much to the dislike of ALL my family to meet total strangers from the internet.....me a retired goat farmer from Illinois who knew nothing of New York City. I had made all my reservations myself and was determined to go to the Parkinson Unity Walk in Central Park. My daughter escorted me to the gate and looked like the world was coming to an end as she took this picture. Little did I know that in the back ground it said "Turn to God". I was only a shadow in God's light from then on. The last three years have been filled with people no one could have told me were coming into my life. I have been to places I would have never been. I have been so sick I just knew I was dying and some how lived for another day and another adventure....and then there is my passion...Unity Walks. This year is the 16th annual and I am team captain of Team Patientslikme, named after the web site we post on. Our little team started January 1st with nothing and now have $6300.00 collected for research, and we are still going. We run a total daily on the site and on Facebook. We all but beg for every cent we get. We have not had corporate matching as some have. We are just a little bunch of Parkinson's patients and their families or spouses who said,Yes, I Can and remembered this little phrase:

No matter what the task may be, How hard the course you face; Believe that you have what it takes To run life's toughest race.

And off we go to meet in New York City, some for their first time, me for my third. Some with more money than others, but all with hearts of gold. All will feel that surge when the Walk begins and they realize they are one of thousands and tears come to their eyes and all will feel so much pride when over the finish line they come. Some will have canes and some will have walkers, some will be in wheel chairs and some can still walk on their own but in their minds and that's every mind, they can fly. They can fly like angels if for just one day because they turned to God at the Parkinson Unity Walk in New York City. Just in case you have not checked the totals, $684,371.00 has been collected so far and we are not done by any means. If you want to experience a life altering experience in your life time, whether you have Parkinson's or not, come to Central Park and help us Celebrate Life as it is........Love Pokie