Why senior adults in physical therapy inspire me

I see gold-medal athletes
most every single day.
But not on rinks of ice or mountain slopes.
These wrinkled aging champions
don’t wear team uniforms.
They amaze me by the many ways they cope.

They push themselves in therapy
regaining what they’ve lost
through a stroke or joints a surgeons just replaced.
And while their reps are painful,
you will rarely hear complaints
though the agony is etched upon their face.

These senior saints convict me
of my tendency to quit
when I slip and bruise my often-swollen pride.
How I want to be more like them
giving everything I’ve got
as I go for gold until the day I die.