Eight days of pain and fatigue not severe but decidedly unpleasant
and as I grumble and complain I know in my aching bones
that others live with real pain days on end or even years
and one (possibly a saint) insists that he is blessed.
Another, at eighty-four, gets himself to the gym each morning
to slowly make his way seven times around the track
stopping often to massage his sore old calves.
And yet one more hauls himself from wheelchair
to treadmill for ten minutes of walking beforeÂ
collapsing back into his chair.
They and so many others are my heroes.
