Tennis, dance, swimming, paddling, gym workout, stairs—all my life I’ve been an active person, though the particular sport or exercise has changed from time to time. I wonder now, as my physical world has shrunk, if I am what I do. If so, there’s not a whole lot left of me.
Now, as cancer consumes my body and I have lost more weight than I ever intended, I ask myself: how identified are we with our bodies? Who are we when our bodies fail us? When illness—or accident or age—diminish our abilities, do they also diminish us as people?