Caregiving Unfiltered – a Column by Crystal Onyema

The drive home turned into a quiet ceremony, a gentle transition between worlds I didn’t yet have the language for. After spending long days with my uncle Brandon, who had Parkinson’s disease, I would get in the car, turn on something soothing and timeless like Sade, and let the…

I previously wrote about how Parkinson’s disease did not arrive in my life all at once, but through memory, in moments that only made sense years later, when I found myself replaying the past, trying to understand what I had missed and why it still mattered. Caregiving, however,…

Growing up, I didn’t know much about Parkinson’s disease. I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I’m just a family member who learned about Parkinson’s through real life, first by watching and later by caring for my uncle Brandon, who lived with the disease until he passed away. Before…