No More Bus Driving For You - Being Told "No"

I hate driving the bus. It is big, traffic around Nashville is awful, and it is not easy to navigate. Monitoring everything, being careful and alert, and just simply driving something that big can be exhausting. As I said, I hate driving the bus – so why am I not happy? She just told me I could no longer drive the bus. I should be doing backflips, but I am not – I am just mad.

About a year before my diagnosis, and even before my physical condition had fully deteriorated, I sat at the clinic for my medical check-up for my CDL license. Every two years, I went through this process to ensure that it was still safe for me to drive the bus. At that time, I was struggling some, but was still getting by, or so I thought. My medical history told a much different story.

As she looked at my full diagnosis, which did not definitively show Parkinson’s yet, and at all the medications I was currently on, she shook her head in silence. “I will be right back”, she said. In my head I thought, “This can’t be good”. As she came back in, I noticed her holding a stack of papers. She looked at me and said, “I cannot approve your medical card, and you cannot keep driving the bus.” She then said, “If you can get these five doctors to sign off on this, then I will approve your card.” I was thinking, “Yeah right, like my wife will go for this.” (she had been after me for years to give this activity up)

I drove back to school, and met with my headmaster. When I showed him what the doctor said, he simply said, “Nope, you are not driving anymore.” I tried to protest, but he would hear none of it.

As I left that meeting, I will be honest, I was in a foul mood – really, I was ticked. How could they do this to me? I was fine. (now remember, I did not even like driving the bus) I was frustrated (my wife was very happy – as were a number of other people) and I was mad.

Simply put, I was mad that someone else was telling me what I could and could not do. I was 43 years old, and still being bossed around. It was the first of many instances over this last year, when someone looked at me and said, “No, you cannot do that.” As a young man, I did not like this.

It felt like I was losing. It hurt to be told “No”, even though I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. I did not want to admit it – my pride did not want to let this go. Little did I know at the time it would be the first of many things that were taken from me. As the year progressed, and my condition worsened, I saw one thing after another that I could not do, or was told I would no longer be doing. It was hard, it hurt, and in some ways, it was humiliating (at least in my mind).

Unless you have experienced this, it is sometimes hard to understand. We do not like to be limited, and just like a child, we often do not like to be told “No”. My pride was wounded, and I was hurting. I am still in that process today, discovering what I can and cannot still do, and I wish I could say I was handling it well every time, but it is still hard and it hurts. I have finally been able to let go of much of the anger, but it is still painful.

In my pride I do not want to let things go. This process messed with my self-image, and forced me to admit and see that I have a struggle, and its name is Parkinson’s. I am also learning that those around me hate this just as much as I do, and in a different way it is just as hard. Sometimes the hardest things in life, are also the right things. As I have humbled myself, I have begun to be able to see the love that others show when they are telling me “No”. And as much as neither of us want to say or hear it, we know it is the right thing to do, and it shows a deeper love and commitment than saying “Yes” ever would.

We all have limits, and we all have things we cannot do. We can either choose to focus on those, or focus on the good, and what we still can do. Being told no is not the end of the world, and being told “You can’t” is not the end of your story. It simply means your story now is going to take a different direction. When someone tells you no (and yes I am preaching to myself), just remember the love and courage it took to say that, because sometimes “No” is the most loving things that can be said.