"Living well is the best revenge, huh?" It's not something he used to buy into, but when your world's been turned upside-down, it gives you a new angle on looking at things. Opens you up to new perspectives and ideas you shut out before. And Jim had a long, long time in the hospital where he often had nothing to do but think. Or read. But mostly think.

"'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,'" he says, almost to himself, just enough to bring the rest of the poem to mind. "It's my path to walk and I've got to own that."