Many, many times in the last 18 months have I thought of those five minutes you ask about. There was another thread in another chat room that asked something similar and I share my answer here too because I've wondered over and over again how different things might have been if we'd only had five more minutes. It's like the C&W song..." One More Day" I hope a few of you read this, look at the person you love and treat them like you knew you only had one more day, five more minutes...one more minute together....

A few moments

It's funny. In a relationship you quantify so many things. Best sex, best date, wildest night, most fun, etc. etc. You think those are the things that you'll remember when you're old. You think those are the important things....the things that make a relationship or at least makes a relationship exceptional. What, in the end, defines a relationship, is quite unexpected sometimes.

I remember the first time I saw her. I remember the first time we went out together, our first movie, our first time making love. 21 YEARS of wild sex, and just BEING BEST FRIENDS ... our entire relationship, to me, is defined however by only a few moments together.

We'd made love and were lying on our sides, arms and legs all tangled up like two squid in a bucket. She whispered into my neck, "I have to die first because I love you too much... couldn't live without you." I kissed her hair and told her that I loved her too. We stayed like that for a while and then fell asleep.

Less than 17 hours later, after just arriving at a party at a friends' house, the wall of an artery deep in Sue's brain gave out. She was 46 and the neurologist told me that, from the CatScan they did, she was "gone" before she hit the floor. It was Christmas Eve of 2000