I sat in my chair in the living room surrounded by almost total darkness weakly pierced by the uneasy flickering of a lone candle on the table beside me. I gazed into the dancing flame seeking warmth and comfort and finding neither.

Outside, the storm raged on. I glanced through the curtains and watched the rain beat down on the outside of the house. Torrential sheets of rain pummeled the house in a symphony of sound, the wind filling the emptiness of the night with fierce and haunting melodies. I watched the trees around the house bend under the might of the storm, their limbs tracing patterns across the wind and rain-swept lawn. Leaves blew in all directions, torn from their limbs and carried easily through the yard.

The power had been off for several hours as the storm ravaged the house. In the first few moments of darkness, I had been excited by the strength of the storm, but now, hours later and still immersed in darkness, I had grown increasingly uneasy. I glanced down at my watch for the hundredth time in the past few moments and agonized at how slowly time was crawling.

I reached over and picked up the phone, holding the receiver to my ear. No dial tone. I was completely cut off from the world, and I felt very alone, lost in the storm. He was somewhere out there in the storm, probably trying to make his way home from school. We had parted that morning from our separate homes, me to work, him to school after a brief morning telephone conversation that ended with the mutual reminder to take an umbrella as the storm had been predicted on the morning news and the promise to meet at my house for dinner at the end of the day. As much as he enjoyed cooking, I was the better cook, and I enjoyed the opportunity to share my talent with such a captivating audience. I sat now, huddled in my chair, wondering why he was so late and where he was.

I thought about him as I sat in the darkness, my fears for his safety growing by the minute. I thought about all I had risked to be near him. After having known him for just a few months, I had left everything behind that I had worked for to be nearer to him. I had completely foregone a six year hotel career, many good friends, and three years of community service behind to travel northward from Florida to the foothills of Kentucky to be near to the man I had come, in such a relatively short time, to love so powerfully and so completely.

I had known almost instantly that I loved him. I had known that he was the most perfect example of humanity I had ever met and I knew that I had to be nearer to him at any cost to my own personal life. There was a spiritual insistence in my desire, my need to be with him, and I found great comfort in the angelic presence that knowing him brought me.

The gamble had paid off, and we had spent several months getting to know each other as he worked through his Master’s Degree and as I began my return to the education degree I had abandoned many years earlier, lured away from teaching by the glamour of hotel life that had never really paid off.

He was hesitant to become too close at