A big, tough-looking man wearing a tank top and baseball cap took hold of the door at the Circle K that my shorter-than-he-ever-used-to-be husband was trying to push open.

The man stood aside, gesturing with a chin up nod that my husband should go on through.

That night I was sitting on the edge of the bed in our bedroom, when my husband came in. I could tell from the expression on his face that something was wrong.

“The hardest thing about this Parkinson’s thing is the pity,” he said.

“What pity?”

“The pity people give me. I see it in their eyes. When somebody helps me with a door they have that look—the look of pity.”

Pity?

I had never seen pity in people’s eyes and told him that I thought maybe he was misunderstanding things.

Having always been a healthy, capable man—he’d never been in a position in…