Contemplating Death

Hey everyone, I've been a bit shaken up today after my partner came home and told me that she almost died in a traffic accident last night. Construction had traffic stopped on the interstate around 10 p.m. last night when a tractor-trailer crested the hill at a high rate of speed heading right for my partner's car. She said the truck slammed on his brakes and fish-tailed down the hill before finally coming to a stop off the road right beside her car.

I held her a little tighter after she told me this - terrified that my night could have been very different with police showing up at my door instead of my love.

I've had trouble letting it go today, running the scene over and over in my head of how devastated I would be today if that trucker had been unable to avoid a collision. Surely she would have died or been seriously injured.

I've said before I'm not afraid to die and I still think that about myself - but what of those I love? I realize I'm terrified of them dying - especially my partner. Not just because my life would be devastated without her, but because of the legal fights that could possibly follow despite our wills, powers of attorney or body disposition papers.

How do you all cope? Have you lost loved ones before?

My partner watched her husband die a few years back and still misses the man she considered her best friend (even though she knew all along she was a lesbian - she still loved him a great deal). I just don't know how I would go on if my partner died suddenly.

Not to be a downer, but this has just been bugging me all day. I can't wait to get home tonight and hug her again and again and again. All we have is the present moment and I want to make all of them with her very special so I don't regret anything if the unthinkable should occur.

Love now, friends, because it's the only time we have to do it.