Taking Broken Wings and Learning to Fly

     My friend Nancy can’t run her fingers over the keys of her baby grand piano anymore. Her three guitars lie dusty. Although she used to sing in groups, Nancy’s voice is a whisper now, so faint that I lean forward toward the sofa as her lips move. “It’s rough,” she says.
     Nancy has dropped thirty pounds from whatever cruelty attacked her, leaving her feet shuffling, her hands trembling, her voice faint, and her doctors puzzled.
     A few years ago when she hit a decadal birthday, Na...