I think, when I’m able to, about when we met; when you carried me off in a raid, away from my family and everything I had ever known.  For years I resented you, never loved you until—
We met in the enlistment line.  There was something between us right away, some sort of spark that lingered long after.  We were scared, though, so scared of being found out, that the closest we ever got was when we died clutching each other in the trenches, wishing that—
We met on the sidewalk when I returned some money you dropped.  You thanked me.  We walked away.  We didn’t see each other again for a while, until—
You were catching a connecting flight to Rhode Island, and I was visiting my aunt.  You were a good seven years older than my young self (that happened sometimes), but it didn’t matter.  We spent the whole flight telling long, exaggerated stories and laughing.  You gave me your number, but I was always too afraid to call (and years later, at eighty-two, I would die and wake up full of regret).
We met when you sold me a bouquet of flowers for my wife.
When we kissed in the street, complete strangers, as parades and banners and cheers surrounded us.
When you were assigned to my operating room.
I sold you fuel for your addiction.
You baptized me.
I baptized you.
Sometimes we never met at all.  Either dumb luck birthed us in different countries (different continents, sometimes), or a last-minute change of plans canceled it, or—even worse—we passed by each other on the street, not even noticing, never even realizing until that chapter ended and we read it over again and damned the mistakes that kept us apart.
My favorites were the ones where we grew old together, sometimes surrounded by family, sometimes with just the two of us.  Those didn’t happen as often.
And now, here it comes again.
I wish I’d known this morning what was going to happen to me; I would have lingered instead of rushing out the door.  I would have kissed your forehead one last time as you slept, maybe studied the contours of your face for a moment before I hurried off into the faceless world of the everyday worker.
If I had procrastinated, postponed, for just a moment longer…maybe I could have avoided it.
…No.  I should know better; I learned many lifetimes ago that you can’t avoid death, can’t even change its circumstances.
Oh, how I’ll miss you—this specific you, the one with blue hair and brown eyes that dance like candlelight.  I’ll miss the rasp in your voice, the awkward way you talk with your hands, the languid yet powerful way with which you carry yourself.
Being here, in this void inbetween death and birth, makes me miss you all the more, because here I can remember you—all of you.  Each and every one.  Every time I forget that this isn’t the first time around until it’s over; and by then it’s usually too late to tell you everything I always wanted to.
Dying young is always tricky.  When one of us goes too soon, sometimes the other isn’t long to follow for one reason or another.  But sometimes, years, decades go by before the other finally dies.  Once I found you, the same you, in two lifetimes. 
It takes a lot of work, a lot of guessing, but I know I’ll find you again.  I usually do; I don’t know if the universe is bringing us together or if we’re outwitting it, but somehow we do all right.
I can feel it coming now.  In a few moments I won’t remember a bit of this, not until the end.  New face, new family, new life.  New you, new opportunity to know you.  I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I’ll find you in another life, my darling.
Even if I won’t know it’s you.