I remember the first time I met her
It was at the orphanage.
I was going through rehabilitation
after running away for what
turned out to be last of many times
I was a lifer.
Who wants to adopt fourteen
year old boys?
Apparently no one.

She was assigned as my counselor
I don't think I have
ever seen anyone as beautiful as her.
That lovely angelic face.
Oh! Her smile,
it was like sunshine.
Unsure of how to address a Nun
I always called her Ma’am.
She did not seem to mind.
Her heart was so full of kindness
She had me hooked.

I think that was when I realized
she was the only friend
I had in the whole world.
What I did not know was
I was falling in love with her.
That confusing rite of passage
from Boyhood to Manhood
left me dazed and confused.
Or perhaps I just did not know
how badly I needed
someone to love.

Even after all these years.
I have never seen
as much kindness in anyone
before or since.
It flowed from her
like honey.

She stopped me
from running away again,
and taught me
how to read books
great books
by important authors.

To learn poetry
and to talk about
its meaning.
At this point I knew
for sure I loved her.

She took me to
the mission where
the homeless lived.
And we served
in the free kitchen.
When some hungry lost soul
asked why she bothered them
they were all drunks anyway
She said sweetly
It is my privilege to share a meal
with you and your friends.
I would have followed
her to the moon
or anywhere.

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 she explained gently
to my young heart,
that she was already
married to her faith.
Showing me her gold ring.
She whispered see
I am a Bride of Christ.

She died a few years later
her letters stopped coming to me.
It was a bad bout of malaria
that took her.
But I thought that Heaven
needed her more than we did.

Now when I feel
alone or sad.
I open an old shoe box
the only thing that I kept from
the orphanage.
And I re-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.