The Vow

by Kim; Krickitt Carpenter; Dana Wilkerson

  I continued to be amazed that her spiritual awareness and trust in God seemed miraculously intact. As her brother, Jamey, had said early in her recovery, she had a rock solid “core of Christianity” that even this terrible experience couldn’t damage. Could that faith be combined somehow with her faith in our marriage to close the gap between us or at least keep it from getting any wider? Even though she couldn’t remember our wedding, would her faith compel her to keep the vows she had made to me?

  One big mystery for me was still what Krickitt was thinking from one minute to the next. Her mood swings were so wide and unpredictable. Frankly, our whole relationship was unpredictable. I didn’t know what Krickitt was like any more, and I didn’t know whether her true self—whatever that was—was represented in her actions, or whether there was a disconnect between what she thought and what she did. I wondered if maybe in her head she knew how to behave, how to interact with me, how to control her anger, and how to be affectionate and forgiving, but she couldn’t put her knowledge into practice because of her injury. Or maybe she didn’t know any of those things at all. Maybe she was truly communicating what she thought and felt inside. Maybe this was the new Krickitt.

  As if the tension in our relationship wasn’t enough, we were still getting relentless calls from collection agencies and were dealing with the ongoing legal battle to settle with our auto insurance company. Before our accident, I had never had a conversation with a bill collector. I had only ever written one bad check, and that was only because I had put a deposit into the wrong account by mistake. I was very responsible with my finances, and I had always paid my insurance premiums specifically to avoid a financial meltdown in the unlikely event of a serious accident. Now the meltdown had happened, in spite of my good intentions and responsible actions, and we were getting nowhere with the insurance company that I faithfully paid every month.

  Some days the problems were overwhelming, sweeping over me in waves. I was drowning in stress and confusion and anger. I couldn’t sleep, I’d had to give up my dream job, and I didn’t know how to be a husband to my wife any more. On other days life seemed less black and hopeless. The one thing I could hold onto was our faith in God. For all her random behavior, I know Krickitt had faith that God was in control, as did I. In the depths of our nastiest shouting matches, we were still connected by that thread of faith.

  Lying in bed late one night with Krickitt asleep beside me, I came face-to-face once again with the fact that only God could heal our marriage. At that point Krickitt and I could hardly be in the same room together without fighting. And I knew the problem didn’t all lie at Krickitt’s feet. I needed help. God was going to have to break me down in order to build me back up into the husband I needed to be for her, and I finally realized that someone else was going to have to help me do it. Staring at the ceiling, hearing and feeling Krickitt’s steady breathing beside me, I rolled these and other thoughts around in my head. God, what are you doing with my life? What are you doing with my vow?

  I had stood before God and a church full of people and promised to provide for and protect Krisxan Pappas “through times of challenge and need.” I vowed to devote myself to her “every need and desire.” I declared I would be faithful. I had said those words with such joy and conviction. I had meant them then, and I would honor them now. I just didn’t know how.

  But I knew somebody would know how, so I finally took Rob’s advice and called the state psychiatric hospital to make an appointment. It felt weird to think of going to a counselor by myself after having been to so many sessions with Krickitt. But I really had no choice. I had been sure I could hold myself together, help Krickitt recover, and get us back on track. I had worked at it for more than a year, and I had not succeeded. I had failed my wife, and it was devastating.

  I went to my first appointment with counselor Mike Hill, whose wisdom and insight would soon have an incredible impact on me. He was not your typical therapist. He wasn’t stuffy or closed off. What you saw was what you got. He was friendly, open, and absolutely fearless.

  I told Mike our whole story, ending with my decision that, while I would never divorce Krickitt, it would be difficult to live together happily, and my best shot might be getting her to the point where she could be self-sufficient and live on her own.

  He thought for a minute before asking, “Why do you think Krickitt married you in the first place?”

  “Because I’m funny, charming, clever, and handsome,” I joked. Mike smiled and didn’t respond. He waited patiently for my real answer.

  “I guess it’s because of the way I treated her,” I finally replied. “I was interested in her as a person, not just as a woman I might have a relationship with, and I think she liked that. We were soul mates before we fell in love. There’s been a strong spiritual side to our relationship from the beginning. Krickitt has an awesome faith in Christ. In fact, the weekend we met we spent one whole evening reading the book of Job together.”

  “How do you treat her now?”

  “Like a father. Like a coach.”

  “So she feels like she’s married to her father?”

  It was my turn to smile. “You got me, Mike. I don’t know how she feels. I know she’s willing to accept that we’re married because everybody keeps telling her we are. And I honestly think she wants to love me as her husband. But deep down, I’m not really sure she knows who I am.”

  After I had a few sessions with Mike and he had some time to understand our situation, he thought it would be a good idea for Krickitt to come with me to one of the sessions. She agreed, and her talk with Mike turned out to be an answer to prayer, the miraculous event we needed to start getting our lives back in sync.

  So Krickitt came to my therapy session. She and Mike talked awhile, and then Mike said, “You know, Krickitt, I don’t think you have any memory of meeting, dating, and marrying Kim.” Incredible as it seems now, no one had ever said those simple words to her.

  Krickitt’s face lit up after Mike’s revelation. “That’s it!” she said excitedly. “That’s it! No wonder this has been so weird.”

  We all understood Krickitt had lost her memory. Her family, friends, and I all knew she didn’t remember meeting, dating, or marrying me. What we hadn’t realized was that, in spite of countless conversations throughout her rehab, Krickitt didn’t truly understand what had happened to her. People had told her over and over that she was married to me, that she really was the woman in our wedding videos, and that she had picked out the china in the cupboard. But nobody had ever explained it as concisely and neatly as Mike did that day in his office.

  Krickitt knew her memory had been erased, but she had been in great turmoil because she thought she should know me, but she didn’t. What she finally realized was that it was all right not to know me or recognize our china. It didn’t mean she was crazy. She wasn’t in a dream. She simply couldn’t remember our life together because she had amnesia. With that in mind, she wasn’t supposed to know me. It was impossible. It was not her fault that she couldn’t remember any of it.

  Does this seem extremely confusing? Imagine what it must have been like for Krickitt.

  So Mike came up with a plan. We had already determined that our roles were mixed up. We were living as coach/athlete or parent/child, not as husband and wife. In essence, I had all the control and I expected her to follow my orders. There was little of the give-and-take that should characterize a healthy marriage. So Mike helped us see that we needed to re-establish the equality in our marriage that had been swept away by the events of the previous year and a half. We also had to rebuild a shared history.

  “You and Krickitt need a fresh start,” Mike explained. “Krickitt doesn’t have any stockpile of shared memories with you. Shared memories leave a trail of emotional attachment that she could trace back to the time you met, reliving all the events, emotions, and growth that lead up to a happy marriage. It’s an emotional journey she doesn’t remember taking, so it’s no wonder she looks a
round and thinks, How in the world did I get here?

  “A new set of memories that she can remember will build new emotional ties between you. I think the old Krickitt is gone. It’s time you got to know the new Krickitt. And it’s time for her to get to know you.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  “How did you get to know the old Krickitt?” he came back.

  “We went out on dates. We went to ball games, the movies, had dinner with friends . . .”

  “Then get to know the new Krickitt the same way.”

  “Start dating my own wife?” I wondered aloud.

  “It’s a way to replace the memories Krickitt has lost,” he said. “To her, you don’t have a past together, nothing to build a marriage relationship on. It’s a second chance to get to know her.”

  I was excited about the prospect of a second chance with Krickitt. For me, it was a second chance in two ways. First, I got another chance to make things work after the accident. I hadn’t done too well with my first opportunity. And second, I had another chance to simply get to know this amazing woman. I had enjoyed doing it the first time, and I was hoping to enjoy it just as much the second time.

  So I took Mike’s advice and started dating my wife. Las Vegas, New Mexico, isn’t nearly as exciting as the more famous town with the same name, but I promised Krickitt that every week we would have date night. The point wasn’t to do something exciting, it was to do something together. We ate pizza. We went bowling. We went to ball games. We went to Walmart, where we would let an employee pick out a bag of candy and we would share it with them in the store; when we left, Krickitt would pay for the empty bag. Krickitt appreciated the break in routine, and I liked it too. And we actually got along pretty well on our little excursions. It seemed to be working out pretty well.

  However, we did have our moments, and those moments often happened as we were playing golf. The first time we played, we didn’t make it through the second hole before Krickitt stomped off in one direction and I drove off in the golf cart in another. We were back in the world of sports, and guess what happened? The coach and father in me had come back out. Needless to say, Krickitt wasn’t happy.

  When we came back together, Krickitt let me have it. She was tired of me not accepting who she was now. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But if you’d quit being such a whiner, you’d do a lot better, and all these people wouldn’t be staring at us.” That wasn’t the response she was looking for. With a withering glance, she stalked off to the parking lot.

  As tough as that first golf outing was, we both decided to give it another try. It was a good testing ground for our new relationship. We were forced to figure out how to get along if we wanted to play. The second experience was pretty much a repeat of our first game. Still we tried it again, forging ahead bravely for two or three holes before one or both of us would lose our tempers. After a few tries we could make it all the way through the fourth hole before the shouting began.

  Every couple has highs and lows in the dating game and we were no different. Everyone has issues to work through; it just happened that we had to go through it all twice, and the second time was much harder. The general trend during that time, though, was definitely positive. Our dates gave us something to talk about other the accident and its consequences. Since we had more in common now, we relaxed more. We laughed more. We kissed more. The momentum had definitely, miraculously, shifted from a downward spiral to an upward climb.

  Krickitt, Mike, and I met regularly to talk about our progress. Mike’s plan seemed to be working. Krickitt and I were building a shared past as a foundation for a new future, and our day-to-day relationship was clearly improving, though we still fought way too much. I finally hoped the worst was behind us and could imagine us staying together after all, something that had seemed impossible only a few months before.

  Mike’s plan didn’t end with us dating each other again. He wanted us to have a rededication ceremony. My immediate reaction to the idea of a “second wedding” was that it was out of the question.

  I didn’t like Mike’s suggestion for several reasons. First of all, we were already married. Would a rededication service send a message to others that we thought our first round of dedication had worn out or dried up? I actually saw it as the opposite. It was because of that first dedication—those first vows—that we were still together today. Second, I didn’t see any point in going to so much trouble for a purely symbolic gesture. Third, it was yet another big expense at a time when our finances were in shambles.

  Krickitt, however, latched onto the idea as soon as Mike suggested it. She explained her point of view to Mike and me. “I’ve gotten to know my lifetime buddy again,” she said, echoing my words when I proposed to her in California, which seemed like a million years ago. “We’ve had so much fun. How can you not care deeply for somebody who has stood by you like Kimmer has stood by me? I want to remember giving my hand to him in marriage. Another ceremony will give me the memories every wife should have.”

  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 w
as 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.