What was the heat turned up in “the day andy came home”?

The phrase, "the longest journey begins with a single step" means

Even the insistent cough of the woman next to him wasn't enough to draw his eyes away from the tiny type of the ancient book its pages were brittle and felt like they could crumble at the slightest disturbance he noticed the musty odor if each page as he carefully it over.

The essay sea stars by barbara hurd. what point is the author making by comparing a sea star missing an arm to a human losing a limb?