Since the second strike, he walks with a limp, talks a little to himself. Several mornings I have had to stop for him entering the school parking lot. Me, in a car; he, slowly stumbling across the street—stooped with a cane—a grim recognition of pain with each breath—a twinge that tucks the corner of his mouth in and under instead of up. We are the same age, but his aches are different from mine—visible in the ways nature marks us each differently.
