My wife Kathy and I had been married and living in Provo, Utah, for about a year and four months, when she had to go away to New York for an internship, to finish up her degree in advertising. She would be gone for about seven or eight weeks. Knowing this long separation was quickly approaching created some powerful feelings in me. As well, my father was quite ill at the time, and his possible death was being talked about by the family. Both of these things combined to bring about this song.