My husband and I were waiting to check in for a routine procedure at the hospital when we heard a voice behind us. “Would you like me to stand in line for you?” A woman was addressing an elderly man who had joined the line. He was using a walker, his back was bent at quite an angle, and the look on his face said he was in pain.
“No,” he said. “I’m okay.” But that offer started a conversation: By the time my husband and I left the line, the man and the woman realized they were both in Korea at the same time, he as a soldier, she as a reporter. The look on his face wasn’t pain any longer; it was recognition. And as he approached the desk to talk to the intake clerk, I swore he stood a little straighter.