Steinke artfully details how we lose our vitality, our stamina and our abilities, bit by bit, organ by joint. After the book’s tour through disease and misfortune, I’d come to feel lucky for my health.

I like the look of old, liver-spotted hands
Playing Rachmaninov with complete agility
Pounding out the chords or whispering the pianissimi

"My stories often start with some image or moment that stays with me... It could be something I experienced, or a conversation I overheard, or the way someone looked at someone else… I will usually just start writing toward that image or moment and build from there."

“It was more than ten years ago that he ceded the master bedroom to her and moved his things into the downstairs guest room.”

“The dogs sniffed my rhinoceros feet with delight.”

“The frosted window, above my kitchen sink, wasn’t open so I couldn’t make out the words, only what sounded like the noise of squabbling blue jays.”

“I’d never held a living cat before. It wriggled and scratched my arms while the paramedics did their work. “

“Being over 70 is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.”