In writing this novel, I looked for a person, an author, who seemed to set the right tone for the story that I was trying to tell. Eventually, I read some of the works by Kahlil Gibran and really connected with what he says about love and loss. However, I need permission from the copyright holders of his work to quote from him. I wrote to them yesterday and am hoping to hear from them today.

Gibran’s most famous work is “The Prophet” but he also wrote poignantly about beauty, love and truth in many of his works. Listen to some of what he writes:

Only our spirits can understand beauty, or live and grow with it. It puzzles our minds, we are unable to describe it in words; it is a sensation that our eyes cannot see, derived from both the one who observes and the one who is looked upon. Real…