Happy Birthday John! I love you!!!
There have been three times in our marriage when John came close to dying: December 17, 1997; July 3, 2014; and March 5, 2025.
The first was in 1997. John was building a home, and a crane was lifting a bundle of roof trusses wrapped in a chain. Mid-lift, the chain gave way. The trusses fell, striking John and slamming his head into the frozen ground.
He was in a coma for weeks, with swelling in his brain the size of a tennis ball. I didn’t know how the brain injury would affect him. I believed he would wake up, but I didn’t know who he would be on the other side of it. Even so, I felt peace through that time, even without knowing the outcome. But it was also lonely—being in that space beside him while he slept, missing the sound of his voice, his presence, his spirit.
So when he finally opened his eyes—when he smiled, when he laughed—it was like feeling the light come back into the room. I could feel him again.
His recovery from such a serious injury was nothing short of miraculous. Still, he lost 50% of his auditory processing. Conversations became difficult—he couldn’t always hold onto words or follow what was being said. We had to learn how to communicate again. And more than that, how to be patient, how to listen with our hearts when words fell short.
We went on to have eight more children after the accident—for a total of eleven. John is a remarkable father. Truly, the perfect companion for me.
In the Cracks of Broken Memory is a song about that season. Not about tragedy, but about the slow, steady work of loving each other through uncertainty. About finding grace when the path isn’t clear. About dancing—sometimes clumsily, sometimes beautifully—on ground we never expected to stand on.
