I prayed over it for a long time. Sought an answer from God last night and again this morning, knowing I was starting down a path from which I could never turn back. The answer was consistent: "Go. Go and meet her."

At six in the morning I dressed in the dark, kissed my wife on the forehead, muttered something about an early meeting, and walked out the front door into a new life and a new way of thinking.

She had not told me which train she would be on, had only mentioned in passing that she would be in town, was not expecting me to meet her, so I arrived in time for the first train, and when she was not on that, wandered the train station for an hour waiting for the second.

When the second train arrived I watched eagerly as passenger after passenger came up the escalator from the tracks below and wandered off.

She was in the middle of the last group of stragglers.

I called her name, but she did not answer. I did not know yet that she was mostly deaf. Feeling ignored and confused I ran after her, not wanting to bust through the group of men in suits around her, but still desperately wanting her attention and approval.

I reached her, reached my arm between two suits and tapped her on the shoulder. Finally, then, she turned and saw me, her eyes lighting up as she broke into a broad smile, squealed, and hugged me, confounding the men in suits who took a polite and bewildered step away from us.

Holding me there, in the midst of all those milling, rushing, harried people she whispered into my ear, "is there some place here we can go? someplace private where I can stick my tongue down your throat?"