Amber was 24, exceptionally beautiful, and her obituary said she was an aspiring model and artist.

There were coincidences that happened to me before Amber's accident. It took a little while to put them together. When I got home that Tuesday, there was sand across the highway and across my driveway. I wondered if someone accidentally dumped a load of sand. After walking my westies and fixing something to eat, I checked online and discovered this crash had happened by my home. Amber was gone and it was just five days until Mother's Day. Five years earlier, my brother Ron and I lost our Mother, Evelyn.

My first instinct was that Amber started her final journey home at my mountain home. The news said she died at the hospital; however, a friend who lives near the fire station said the helicopter did not come for Amber. The car was taken to French's Auto Parts south of town. My Dad, Rob, had been an insurance agent and once took me to see another wrecked car where someone had lost his life. So, I went to see Amber's car that weekend. It looked like the engine was in the front passenger compartment. Perhaps her journey did begin here on the mountain. As the coincidences came to mind one after another, I wondered if "mom was warning me" or if "the angels knew Amber was coming soon." Years later, an EMT who had been here with first responders pointed across the highway just above my driveway to the spot where he said she died.

Here are some little coincidences that happened before the accident that stood out later:

• I bought a pretty and unusual watch the Saturday before the accident that has amber stones in the band. The watch battery was dead and it needed a couple more links to fit more comfortably. Normally, I wouldn't buy something that didn't fit, but it seemed like I should. The watch hour hand was initially set between 11 and 1. I didn't think much about it and changed the time to 10 till 5 trying to figure out what battery to get. Several stores later, the right battery was located the weekend after Amber's accident.
• On Sunday before the accident, I got into an old jewelry box looking for silver chains that might have two links I could use to make the watch band longer. I found one and fixed the watch, but also ran across my mom's cross necklace with a tiny glass bubble with the Lord's Prayer inside. I had an instinct to buy a little cross necklace on a Wednesday in October 2007 before my mom died on a Friday, two days later. I knew mom wasn't doing well, but not how close she was to dying. I added mom's cross to my little cross chain on Sunday, two days before Amber died.
• Shortly before learning about the accident, I bent over to get mail out of the mailbox by the highway. Out of nowhere an inner voice said " stay in your lane." A feed truck was coming eastbound out of the uphill curve, safely in his lane. A tractor trailer was coming down the long steep straightaway and was in his lane too. I walked back to the house not thinking more about it until later.
• I was considering taking off Monday or Tuesday to plant three rosebushes because Josh, my "yard man," was busy. When deciding whether to go to work or plant roses each morning, an insistent thought encouraged that there was work to do. I follow my instincts which meant that it wasn't my car entering or leaving the driveway that got hit when Amber left her lane.
• Tammy, a manager at Arby's where I stopped on the way to work regularly, already knew about the accident before I even said Amber's name. She said someone named Amber Dove used to work for her. Tammy said her husband talked with the EMTs who said Amber's phone fell in the floor and she was reaching for it.
• A young coworker in Chantilly who lives in Culpeper where the Funeral Home is at said Amber was his 7th grade girlfriend.
• At one news site, I commented and believe Amber's aunt Dara and dad responded to me because they knew about me sending roses for Amber's mom to the funeral home. Aunt Dara told me that Amber had a tattoo put on her ankle after her grandmother passed away because she missed her so much. Amber's grandmother's name was Barbara. I was old enough to be her grandmother and my name is also Barbara.
• Amber's middle name is Lynne and my middle name is Lynn.
• Amber's mom is named Mary and both of my grandmothers were named Mary.

I ran across a now defunct online question/answer thread (http://www.formspring.me/loveydove16) which seemed to be answered by Amber. The text is gone now, but read: "Question: If you were a superhero, what would be your special power? :) (http://www.formspring.me/loveydove16/q/419884849) Answer: I would like to have the ability to shapeshift (but only if I could retain the ability to think like a human). Who wouldn't want to soar through the sky one minute, then run through the forest the next...I could technically be invisible even, and transform myself into a dust mite...lol"

In the years since Amber's tragic death, I remember her. Here on the mountain when the butterflies flutter and soar around the hydrangea trees and butterfly bush, I smile and say hello to Amber Dove. Somehow, I think she knows.

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