Raymond had to fight his own body back, hour by hour, relearning things a grown man never expects to relearn, how to climb a flight of stairs, how to work the buttons of his own shirt, how to lift a cup of coffee to his mouth without his hand shaking it half empty.

These are the small dignities that a healthy person never thinks about, that vanish in an instant and must be won back, if they can be won back at all, through months of humbling and unglamorous work.

I watched him do it.

I watched a man who had commanded a business empire sit at a table and practice, over and over, the fastening of a single button, his face set with a determination that would have looked absurd applied to so small a task if you did not understand what it represented.

He was not really relearning buttons and cups and stairs.