THE DEFIANT TRUTH · MONDAY · DF019

I Refuse to Let Parkinson’s Write My Obituary.

August 31, 2026Identity, Legacy & Parkinson’s8 min read

A diagnosis can shape almost every chapter of a life and still have no right to claim authorship of the whole story.

Obituaries are strange little hostage notes written by the living. A whole human life gets reduced to a few hundred words, two respectable photographs and whatever fact the family decides can explain the rest.

For someone who has lived with Parkinson’s for thirty-five years, I can already see which fact is waiting near the top.