“It’s gone.” The trainman stood at the only lighted gate in Penn Station. The train had gone, leaving me behind to figure out how on earth I was to make a speaking engagement on Long Island in an hour and a half.

We’ve all experienced the desolation of being left in one way or another. And sooner or later many of us experience the greatest desolation of all: he’s gone. The one who made life what it was for us―who was, in fact, our life.