My husband Tom and I are just hours away from celebrating our shared sixty-first birthday in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s been a remarkable and synchronistic year.

July 6, 2017 began with a surprise. It was me lying on a gurney. Tom stood by me. Calling my sons. Squeezing my hand. Assuring me that the doctors and nurses at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis (less than ten miles from my boyhood home) would take good care of me. I had just suffered a mild heart attack on our way west as we were driving to our new home in Arizona.

I will never forget that crazy day in muggy St. Louis. Craning my neck to steal a tear-stained hug from an anonymous and kind nurse. Telling her I was a writer. Explaining that I would share this experience to ease the pain for some other poor soul. Doing so would help me heal. It would be my salvation. The story became my third book: An Unobstructed View.

A year has passed, but my St. Louis synchronicity continues. The Major League Baseball schedule makers decided to send the St. Louis Cardinals to Arizona in early July–exactly one year after my brush with destiny. They paired my beloved team from the bleacher seats of my 1960s with the Arizona Diamondbacks in my new hometown in an Independence Day contest in the desert.

Needless to say, Tom and I bought two bleacher tickets for last night’s game. Before we found our seats, I snapped this synchronistic selfie of the two of us … with me, wearing my weathered Cardinals cap. Several hours later, the Redbirds escaped with a sloppy 8-4 victory.

But, in the scheme of life, the sweetest triumph of all happened for me a year ago on July 6, 2017 in St. Louis. That’s when I was reborn with my husband by my side. It happened in the city that first welcomed me.