Whereas my grandfather was getting used to a much more terrifying reality. Holding my hand to keep his balance, as trees and bushes made strange, sliding movements in his peripheral vision, Lefty was confronting the possibility that consciousness was a biological accident.

I step down, Lefty doesn't. Instead, he drpos, cleanly, six inches into the street. Still holding his hand, I laugh at him for being so clumsy. Lefty laughs, too. But he doesn't look at me. He keeps staring straight ahead into space. And, gazing up, I suddenly can see things about my grandfather I should be too to see. I see fear in his eyes, and bewilderment, and, most astonishing of all, the fact some adult worry is taking precedence over our walk together.The sun is in his eyes. His pupils contract. We remain at the curb, in its dust and leaf matter. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Long enough for Lefty to come face-to-face with the evidence of his own diminished faculties and for me to feel the onrush of my own growing ones.