Your story brought me back to the evening in January 2000 when I received a call at my office in NYC from a Chaplain at a hospital in PA to which where then unbeknownst to anyone in the family, my father had been helicoptered after a car crash. That he survived is one of the reasons I firmly believe that dates of death are contained in our soul contracts. Then your last line brought me back to the first anniversary of Lindsey's death when I laid flowers on her grave with this tanka I wrote in a card for anyone to read:

Thirty-six long stems

For each too short span of years

Roses evoke you

Soft beautiful elegant

Prick ye who thorns memory