This posting is a reprint of an article which MORE Magazine printed in June 2009.
When my mortality called, I refused to answer.
When she phoned again, I told her she had the wrong number.
Like the most persistent junk callers, she rang me yet again and this time left a message: “You have Parkinson’s disease.” I hung up, hoping she was merely an obscene caller.
When she phoned once more, I told this nuisance caller politely but firmly to check directory assistance because she must have me mixed up with another Peggy van Hulsteyn, some frail widow in declining health. I was the healthy Peggy van Hulsteyn, fifty-something, with boundless energy, an exciting writing career, and a wonderful marriage. Having a degenerative illness was not on my to-do list.
