It had been a rough period for him – his business had failed, he’d lost his home and later his wife, and the emotional toll was, he felt, significant.

Debt and death had a funny way of reaching into the depths of one’s being and shutting out the light he mused, and as he reflected on the past few years he realized that his world was much darker than he had previously thought.

He posited that the problem with darkness was that light alone was insufficient to illuminate one’s existence – one needed energy as well, otherwise the light would flicker out as quickly as it had been created.

His problem, he realized, was that he was exhausted both mentally and physically – energy was something that escaped him, instead he felt drained and lifeless.

He felt her before he knew her, sensing her vitality and her light that burned with such intensity he was sure he would go blind if he looked into her eyes; he looked anyway and as he did so he realized that that same light was the end of the tunnel.