Ever come close to death? Ever been so close to your own mortality that your brain registers "This is the end."

It's happened to me three times. The first didn't have much of an impact on my mind, I registered the situation, with eerie calmness. I heard my brain churn out three words I'm gonna die." I saw what seemed like certain  death. Then I was improbably and inexplicably alive. The accident left me thankfully walking around these last 18 years with only a damaged spine. The pain's worth it because I'm here living. Living and loving life.

Since then I have my two youngest. They and their sister bring such grace and beauty into the world with their smiles. Then there's the beauty they make for the world and the gorgeous love they inspire in my husband. I've been here watching them paint their worlds, dance through their lives, and sing their joy. They share their love of life and add to mine.

My second flirtation with death took three years to evolve. Silentlly, covertly, my lifeblood slipped away. My heart became sick, literally, and I went into heart failure.  Rather than having lost everything, I gained a precious gift, the ability to love every day and stay in the moment.

Living every day like it might be my last has truly transformed my world view. The mindfulness I now have has brought me such peace during strife and calm in the midst of stress …. I am blessed by it.

In that brush with the endless void I gained rather than lost. That time the impact was not on my spine, but on my mind and spirit.

It's nothing less than the grace of God, a gift from the universe, affirmation of the highest order.

Three days ago came my third glimpse of the death, that harbinger of loss. The loss of myself somehow never scares me anymore, but the thought of my children motherless, my husband lost in greif and growing old alone, my parents crying over their child's grave … that terrified me.

I already know now what gift I have recieved. This third threat to my life has woken me to the need to treat myself better and to heal myself better, to not settle for healthy me I was on Friday, but to reach for the healthier me I will be next Friday.

I'll be here as much as I can and if you ask, I'll tell you about this path and how I walk it.