The Vow: The True Events That Inspired the Movie (19 page)

While I still wasn’t the biggest proponent of this plan, seeing Krickitt so excited and animated made me think maybe I should do it because it would make her happy. Even if it didn’t mean as much to me as it obviously did to her, it was something I could do to show her how much I loved her.

“I have snapshot memories of my life just before the accident, but I don’t have heart memories,” she said as we continued to talk with Mike. “That’s what I want to get back, something in my heart.

“I want to remember wearing a big, white wedding dress and having my dad give me away. I want to know what it feels like.” That sounded pretty logical to me. After all, if I had lost a memory of meeting a sports hero, I would rather meet him again than just be told about it and be shown the photos.

“When I lost my memory, I lost my feelings for Kim. I had to re-discover what it was about Kim I had fallen in love with before. I can’t remember what it was like the first time, but I’m guessing that this time my love has grown in a different way—not that ‘fluffy’ romantic love, but more of a conscious choice. The fact was, I was married to this man. The feelings came later, and by God’s grace I’ve grown to love him again.”

That’s when I realized I wasn’t the only one who had kept a vow. Krickitt kept her vow to honor and support a man she didn’t remember marrying. For better or worse, as she said with a smile: “I’m stuck with you for life. We will make it work. There is no other option.”

“You coached me through rehab,” she said to me with conviction. “You taught me how to walk again and how to hold a fork. You even helped me go to the bathroom. Now I want you to see me as your wife, not your daughter.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

Krickitt wanted to wait until after our insurance problems were settled before going through with our second wedding. I agreed, since it wouldn’t be good to have that hanging over our heads on the big day. It was only a few weeks later that we mediated and came to a settlement. Bills were paid up and liens were lifted—one more reason to celebrate a new beginning.

I figured that a new wedding meant a new proposal. I decided I would surprise Krickitt at the fitness center where she worked part-time. On Valentine’s Day 1996, I walked into the center with a bouquet of roses, got down on one knee in front of the woman I loved, and as a small crowd gathered, I slipped her wedding ring off her finger and repeated the words I had said nearly three years earlier, “Krisxan, will you be my lifetime buddy?”

Once again, Krickitt Carpenter agreed to marry me, and I slipped her ring back on her finger. I could tell, though, that she was a little disappointed with my lack of creativity. Looking back on it, I can see she was right. The sights, sounds, and smells of an exercise studio aren’t exactly the stuff of which romance is made. Even though sports had been such a big part of our lives, I know I blew it.

I had originally agreed to the rededication ceremony in order to make Krickitt happy; but the idea grew on me, and before long I was as excited about another wedding as she was. However, this was not going to be the huge production the first ceremony had been. Instead we wanted something quieter and more intimate.

We found a rustic log chapel at Pendaries, a resort in the little town of Sapello, not far from Las Vegas, that was perfect. It only held about thirty people, but since we were only inviting a few close friends, we figured that would be plenty of room.

As the day approached, Krickitt was the picture of confidence and composure, though she warned us that would likely change on the actual day. “I’m going to be a bawling mess when I walk down that aisle,” she predicted. “That’s when it’s going to hit me—everything that’s happened in the last few years.”

As always, Krickitt was consistently writing in her journal. The day before our second wedding, she wrote, “Lord, . . . Please open my mind and heart to say the words in my vows you wish. I pray that Kim and I may spend some quality times together sharing, laughing, and caring. I pray for our second honeymoon, that it may really go well. I can’t wait. I need your strength, Lord, and your Spirit. Please help me and Kimmer grow closer together. I love you.”

Krickitt chose Megan Almquist to reprise her role as maid of honor. Megan was looking forward to watching Krickitt make a memory she would hang onto. I chose a different best man for our second big day: Krickitt’s favorite physical therapist, Scott Madsen. He was the perfect choice because he had played an important role in Krickitt’s recovery and his encouragement had helped me through my darkest days.

Some very special people came to share our new beginning with us, many of whom we met as a result of the accident. We were blessed with the presence of DJ Coombs, the EMT who’d overcome her claustrophobia to treat Krickitt when she was still hanging upside down in the car; Bob Grothe, the flight nurse on the helicopter from Gallup to Albuquerque when almost everyone had all but given up on Krickitt; and Wayne and Kelli Marshall, the couple who had stopped at the scene of the accident and prayed for us.

So on May 25, 1996, I stood in the front of the little mountain chapel at Pendaries, faced the great love of my life for the second time in the presence of God and a body of witnesses, and spoke with an assurance and love and deepest thanksgiving that I will never be able to describe. I could barely see Krickitt through the tears in my eyes as I pledged myself to her once again.

“Krick, I stand before you once again, reaffirming the commitment of vows I once made. I thank God every day for sparing our lives and providing strength and will to endure these trials and tribulations. Almost three years ago I made a vow before God. And as I stated then and state now with greater love and desire:

“I promise to defend our love and hold it in highest regard. I promise to be forgiving, understanding, and patient. I promise to tend to your every need. I promise to respect and honor you fully.

“Most of all, I promise that no matter the adversaries we may face, I will never ever lose the vow of commitment to protect you, guide you, and care for you until death do us part.

“Only one thing can surpass forever the painful events that we have felt. That is the love I have for you, and I thank the Lord for his guidance and faith in me to love you. I am truly honored to be your husband.”

Krickitt’s vows were a lot shorter, but no less meaningful.

“Kimmer, I love you. I cherish you as my husband. Thank you for being true to your first vows. I promise to be here for you, to encourage you and comfort you in your time of need. I pray that I may be the wife that the Lord desires for you to have.

“I need you, Kimmer. And I love you.”

Krickitt was wearing the same gown she had worn to our first wedding. I, on the other hand, was not able to fit into the same tuxedo. Although we had agreed to use the same rings, as a surprise I had also bought a new ring and planned to put them both on her finger together when the time came.

After I slipped both rings on Krickitt’s finger, Megan handed Krickitt my old ring. When she opened her hand, I saw she had also gotten me a second ring. The new one was gold with the Christian fish symbol as a representation of everything the Lord had done in our lives. As she slipped the two rings on where the old one had been, Krickitt gave me the huge smile I had seen so many times before the accident. I was thrilled to see it once again.

I took Krickitt back to the same hotel on Maui that we had gone to on our first honeymoon. As we drove to the beach we saw a sign that read, “Jesus Is Coming Soon.” Krickitt told me she’d had a flash memory of it but no context to put it in until now.

We went to the place that had been our favorite spot on the beach during our first trip. “Something clicks,” she said, looking at a patio with some tables and chairs scattered across it. She even showed me the table where we had sat nearly three years earlier. “But it’s déjà vu minus me,” she explained.

We never again tried to jog Krickitt’s memory. From that moment on we gave it up to God. Our lives were in his hands, and he was having us look to the future, not to the past. And our future, it turned out, was going to take us places and give us opportunities we never could have imagined.

8

GLOBAL IMPACT

O
ur two weddings had a lot of things in common: the dress, the rings, the maid of honor, the honeymoon trip. But there was one huge element that was only present at our second wedding: the media. Yes, outlets such as CBS Television,
People
magazine, the
London Times
, ABC News, and
Inside Edition
were there with the hopes of getting a glimpse of our big day.

After the second proposal, we had discovered that people who heard our love story were very encouraged by it. This, in turn, encouraged Krickitt to pray. She asked God to use our story in ways that would show others his amazing love and power. After all, he was the one responsible for us keeping our vows. We weren’t still together because of any special traits either of us had; it was all because of God. We couldn’t have done it without our faith in him.

Mere days after Krickitt prayed that prayer, we got a call out of the blue from Van Tate, host of a TV show called
On the Road
on the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. Van was doing a story on “Whatever Happened to Coach Carpenter?” At the time when I was head coach, I had been the youngest in the NCAA, and a lot of people had interest in my story. When speaking to us on the phone, Van remembered the accident, and he was excited about our plans to have a second wedding ceremony. He wanted to highlight our story on his show.

A few days after Van’s show, a reporter from the
Albuquerque Journal
called and wanted to do a story too. On Sunday, March 17, 1996, we were front-page news in Albuquerque under the headline “Love Lost and Refound.” The article went into more detail about our accident and Krickitt’s rehab, but the main focus was that after all that had happened we were not only still married but were going to renew our wedding vows.

Krickitt and I were both excited to see that the author and editors hadn’t glossed over or even completely failed to mention the importance of faith in our lives. On the second page of the story there was a large photo of the two of us praying in front of an open Bible.

The article also included this quote: “I’m not marrying the same person I married three years ago, but I’m not the same person either. For instance, baseball doesn’t mean what it used to mean to me. That was part of our old life. We’re closer now; we’ve got a different bond, a more meaningful connection than before. My friends say I’ve become a religious freak. No, I tell them, I’ve just seen the miracles that God’s work can provide.”

We were glad that people were hearing our story and seeing the part God played in it, but we didn’t really think of our story as something that was special or compelling enough that it would be of interest to anyone outside of our little corner of New Mexico. We were wrong. We soon got a call from Tom Colbert, the president of a company called Industry Research and Development that looks for human-interest stories in the news and helps local reporters connect with national media. He had seen the article in the
Albuquerque Journal
and asked us if we wanted him to release our story through the Associated Press. He explained that once it was fed to the AP network, it would be available to hundreds of newspapers and other news outlets across the country.

“You need to think carefully about this,” he advised us. “Because if we do this, your lives are never going to be the same.”