Let’s Talk about Tracy

I’m reading a story in The Guardian this morning about Still, a new documentary chronicling Michael J. Fox’s life-experience with Parkinson’s disease.

This is a bit off-track from my usual writing, but I have a friend with Parkinson’s and it drew me into the story. Michael is only 62 and has lived more than half his life with the disease. I had always thought it (when I thought about it at all) as a disease most often occurring in one’s later years.

Anyway, the story is compelling, brave and compelling, frantic and compelling, as was Michael’s acting career, and I suggest you take a moment to read it. The world is pretty much a shit-storm at the moment, but most shit-storms are both personal and private, hidden away from the headlines.

But Michael’s wife, Tracy Pollan, has been there since before, and remains by his side long after

Her bio reads, “Tracy Jo Pollan is an American actress, best known for her role as Ellen Reed on the NBC sitcom Family Ties from 1985 to 1987” and goes on to run through additional credits. But they met while both were actors in Family Ties. Ellen Reed was Michael’s love interest in the sit-com and as a proper script would have it, they were married a year after the show went off the air.

Two years later, in 1990, Michael was diagnosed with Parkinson’s

They were both just under thirty years old and dreamed the dreams of all newlyweds. Marriages are many things, but mostly it seems to me they are a test of taking on whatever life throws at you as a couple, putting on the bravest face you can and always moving forward. Michael, Tracy and their two kids are experts at moving forward.

With Tracy, I’m reminded of a comment Ginger Rogers once made about her career with Fred Astaire. ‘I danced every step he did, backwards and in high-heels.”

And so it was, and is, with Michael and Tracy, I suppose. It’s no surprise that she is mostly background story in this drama, although her married life with Michael is all foreground. Suffice it to say she has been there every step of the way, backwards in high-heels or not.

I would guess that’s not a requirement of the script, but it’s as close as I can come to the definition of love.