Ma’am

I remember the first time I met her
At the orphanage.
I was a lifer
who wants to adopt fourteen
year old boys?
Apparently no one.

She was so beautiful
and had the most angelic face.
Oh! her smile
it was like bright sunshine.

Unsure of how to address a Nun
I always called her Ma’am.
She did not seem to mind.

I think that was when I realized
she was the only friend I had.
What I did not know was
I was falling in love with her.

I have never seen as much kindness
before or since.
It flowed from her.

She stopped me running away again,
and taught me how to read books,
great books by important authors.
To learn poetry and talk about
its meaning.

At this point I knew I loved her.
That confusing rite of passage
between boyhood and manhood.
She took me to the mission where
the homeless lived and we served
in the free kitchen.
I would follow her anywhere
to be by her side.

She was relocated
after a couple of years
to a mission in Africa.
I was desolate
Begging to go with her

I even  asked her to marry me.
She smiled and said
if she was free
she would marry me
in a heartbeat.

But explained gently
to my young heart.
that she was already
married to her faith.
Showing me her gold ring.

She died a few years later
her letters stopped coming.
It was a bout of malaria.

Now when I feel alone
or sad.
I open an old shoe box
and read her stacks of letters

one by one.
Always in the order
that she sent them to me.
And as usual
I feel warm and safe  again.