The Vow Read online

  As I lay there after Krickitt’s chopper took off, I still couldn’t believe that my wife of two months was going to die. She was so full of life, so joyful, so focused on being the woman God wanted her to be. Just that morning she had been writing in her journal again. When I read the entry later, I was amazed by what she wrote that day: “Lord, . . . Help us to have endurance to work hard for your values. I pray for opportunities to serve you, be a witness for you, be a leader for you. . . . Please open my heart and Kimmer’s to do the things that will be pleasing to you.” Little did we know on that Thanksgiving Eve how God would answer those prayers in amazing and extremely difficult ways.

  But that night my thoughts weren’t on the future. They were focused on the horrific events of the present. I called my dad again. Through my heartbreaking sobs, I managed to gasp out the words, “They’ve flown Krickitt to Albuquerque and they wouldn’t let me go with her. You’ve got to come and get me. Take me to her.” I broke down again, overwhelmed by the emotions flowing through me. “I have to see my wife again before she dies.”

  3

  A MODERN-DAY MIRACLE

  While my dad was figuring out how to get me to Albuquerque, Krickitt’s parents were just arriving home to an empty house. Gus and Mary had done all they could to make sure our first Thanksgiving as a married couple would be special. Since we weren’t going to be able to make it to their house for Christmas due to my work schedule, they decided to add an early touch of holiday cheer to their house by putting up their Christmas lights, both inside and out. They knew we wouldn’t be getting in until late in the evening, so they had gone out to watch a basketball game.

  Krickitt’s parents hadn’t yet heard the news when they returned home from the game, but Mary knew something was wrong even before they entered the house. It was after midnight, yet when they pulled in the drive there was no white Escort sitting there to announce our arrival. They soon heard the life-altering news: their beloved daughter and her husband had been in an accident and the outlook wasn’t good.

  I was waiting for my dad to call back with his plan when Mary called me. Since Krickitt was on her way to Albuquerque, I couldn’t tell Mary how she was doing, as I didn’t know myself. But I do remember telling her, “I’m hurting bad and I can’t live without her.” Mary said she would call the hospital to check on Krickitt’s status, and they would catch the first plane out of Phoenix in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day.

  It could have been two minutes or two hours after talking to Mary that my phone rang again. I answered and heard my father’s voice. “Son, how are you doing?”

  “I want to see Krickitt, that’s how I am. I can’t breathe and my back is killing me. I have to see her, Dad.” The tears were pricking in the back of my eyes, but I had to keep them under control to get through this conversation. I hoped with all my might that Dad could get me to Albuquerque to see my wife.

  He could. “Listen, son,” he said in a steady, controlled voice that gave me both strength and comfort, “I’ll drop your mother off at the hospital in Albuquerque. Then I’ll meet you at the truck stop in Grants and drive you back to see Krickitt.”

  Dad made it sound like he would only have to make a quick trip across town. But the truth was that he and Mom had just driven almost four hundred miles across New Mexico to get to my brother’s house. Now he was going to drive two hundred miles from Roswell to Albuquerque and then another sixty to Grants, the midway point between Albuquerque and Gallup. To top it all off, a storm had blown in during the night, and some sections of the highway were solid sheets of ice.

  “The problem is that I don’t think I can get out of here unless you come and get me discharged. They admitted me through the ER, and they haven’t done much for me yet because they were so busy with Krickitt. I’m in pretty bad shape, Dad.”

  “I’ll send Porky to get you out.”

  When I heard that, I knew it was done. Porky Abeda was one of Dad’s best friends, a big bear of a man and former fire chief of Gallup. He was well known in the town and a very persuasive man, so I knew if anybody could get me out of the hospital, Porky could.

  Understandably, the medical staff members did not agree with my decision to leave. A nurse tried to reason with me, “We haven’t had a chance to examine you for internal injuries. It is not advisable to leave now.”

  “I just want to be with my wife.”

  “By the time you get to Albuquerque, it may be impossible to repair the damage to your nose and your ear. And we don’t even know what kind of internal bleeding you might have.” The nurse paused and gave me a very stern look. “If you leave the hospital now, you could die.”

  “I don’t care,” I replied. “If Krickitt dies, I don’t want to live.”

  If a patient wants to be discharged against medical advice, the hospital is only supposed to release him or her to a relative. Porky doesn’t look like he could be my cousin, uncle, or any other relation. He’s full-blooded Navajo and I’m Caucasian. I don’t know what he said to the hospital staff, but it worked.

  After the papers were signed, Porky wrapped me in a blanket, packed me into the backseat of his car, and took off for Grants. I tried out various positions in the backseat, trying to find one that would allow me to breathe with less pain. Every time I inhaled it felt like my chest was on fire. Looking up through the window, I watched the lights as we zoomed down the interstate. I finally saw the huge truck stop sign at Grants, and we pulled off to meet my dad.

  He was pacing on the sidewalk. He had made the drive from Roswell in about half the normal time even though the highway was coated with ice and there had been two other major wrecks between Albuquerque and Gallup that night—the same wrecks that tied up the helicopter that I had hoped would take me to Albuquerque and Krickitt. Porky hopped out of the car and I watched Dad walk up to him.

  “Where’s Kim?” I heard Dad ask, his question muffled by the sound of numerous eighteen-wheelers idling all around us. He looked at the car, obviously expecting me to get out and switch cars for the drive back to Albuquerque.

  “Danny,” Porky said solemnly, “Kim’s in bad shape. He can’t get out of the car on his own.”

  When Porky opened the door, the icy wind whipped right through the blanket. My father’s eyes met mine before glancing at my cut-up face, ripped ear, and mutilated nose. He shivered, and I knew it wasn’t from the cold.

  The two of them got me switched to Dad’s car, and we took off for Albuquerque, a customary hour-long drive. But this wasn’t the customary trip. By the time we hit the on-ramp to the interstate, Dad was going 110 miles per hour.

  For the third time in twelve hours I found myself trying to find a comfortable position in the passenger seat of a car. Nothing seemed to help. I was gurgling more with every breath, unable to get enough air. Inhaling deeply had gone from painful to impossible.

  We zoomed along the interstate at two miles a minute, in and out of freezing rain. Through it all there were times when I thought I would never take another breath. The broken ribs had damaged my lung, and I felt as if I was slowly slipping away.

  There wasn’t much conversation during that trip. Every once in awhile Dad would say, “Are you all right, son?”

  My internal response was always, No, I’m not all right. My wife is dying, and I might be dying too. We’ve only been married ten weeks, and now it’s all going to be over in a matter of hours . . . if it’s not over already. But all I could say was, “Just get me to Albuquerque, Dad.”

  Every few minutes Dad called Mom at the hospital to see how things were going. After every call I asked him if there was any news. “They’re still working on her,” was the only answer I ever got. I didn’t know until later then when Dad had still been in Roswell, he had called the hospital and was told that Krickitt probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

  I was under no illusions that D
ad was telling me everything he knew about Krickitt. I had seen her on the gurney in Gallup. I had heard the ER doctors and nurses talking. They had brought me her wedding ring and acted as if it was already over. It seemed to me they had given up on my wife before they even loaded her into the helicopter.

  Even as we approached Albuquerque, I believed in my heart that Krickitt was dead. When I had told that nurse that if Krickitt died I didn’t want to live, I had truly meant it. I lay there thinking, I can end my agony right here, right now. All I have to do is just reach up, yank on the door handle, and roll out. At over 100 miles an hour there’s no doubt what the result would be. But as soon as I had that thought, I felt a strong, peaceful presence in the car with me that could only have been God’s Spirit. A voice said, “Wait a minute.” I don’t know if I audibly heard the words or just felt them, but they were there, and they saved me from the most horribly selfish decision I ever could have made. I don’t know if I ever actually reached for the door handle or not, but I know I never considered taking my own life again. Even to this day I feel ashamed of those thoughts as I see our two loving children. Taking my own life would have denied them theirs.

  At last we came over a rise and saw the city of Albuquerque spread out below us. I propped myself up on the seat and looked down at the city. I wondered where my wife was in that huge sea of lights.

  When we were five blocks from the University of New Mexico Hospital, Dad called the hospital emergency room and told them to be ready for me when we arrived. It had been ten hours since the accident, and I still hadn’t received much more than basic first aid. By the time we rounded the last corner and pulled up to the emergency entrance, a crowd was waiting—doctors, nurses . . . and Mom. I took her presence as a bad sign.

  Someone opened the car door and I tried to get out of the car on my own. Mom looked at me with concern, and I watched as her expression turned first to shock and then to horror at the sight of my disfigured face. Then she disappeared from my line of vision, crowded out by orderlies and doctors huddling around to help me out of the car. They were talking to me and to one another so fast I didn’t know what was going on.

  “Where’s Krickitt? Where’s my wife?” I shouted above the noise as loud as I could. It seemed as if no one was listening. “Somebody please tell me what’s happened to my wife!”

  All of a sudden a familiar voice broke through the chaos. “Coming through! Out of the way!” It was Mike Kloeppel, my best man from our wedding, another bear of a man who was coming to my aid just as Porky Abeda had. Mike knew my first priority was to find out about Krickitt, not for the medical staff to take care of me. I soon saw him come barreling through the mob to tell me about my wife, pulling nurses and other ER staff away as he came. I saw someone grab him by the shirt, but he easily shrugged the hand off.

  When Mike got close enough to be sure I could hear him, he asked me, “How are you doing, bud?” Ignoring his question, and fearful to hear his response to my own, I asked him, “Mike, is she still alive?” Mike paused with a sigh and said, “She’s still hanging in there, Kim. They’re still working on her in the ICU.” I felt relief flood through me as I sent up a silent prayer of thanks on that Thanksgiving morning.

  Once Mike was out of the way, I was rushed into the emergency room. After the doctors got a good look at my injuries, they couldn’t believe I had been released from the hospital in Gallup in the shape I was in. I didn’t have the strength to explain that I had released myself against medical advice.

  The same physicians who had worked on Krickitt when she had arrived came to check me out and started ordering IVs, X-rays, and CT scans. Nurses scattered in every direction to carry out their demands. I learned that due to the knot they had discovered behind my injured ear, they thought I might have brain swelling and permanent damage.

  One of the doctors asked me where I hurt. “My back,” I said. “I can hardly move without pains shooting all the way up and down it.” They rolled me over to check it out. I heard somebody exclaim, “Look at that!” Apparently, as the car had skidded upside down on the pavement, slivers of glass from the car’s sunroof had been wedged into my back. A couple of them were four inches long.

  The doctor pulled a curtain around me in an attempt to shield me from his rage, but I could still hear him asking anyone within earshot, “Did he even get any treatment in Gallup?” Of course, he didn’t know the whole story. I had been more than happy for the hospital staff at Gallup to give their undivided attention to my wife, and it had kept her alive.

  I later learned that the nurses on Krickitt’s lifesaving flight confirmed the quality of care she had received in Gallup, writing, “The major credit for your recovery goes to the Gallup EMTs at the scene and Drs. Kennedy and Beamsley at Rehoboth Hospital. They did all the right things. We just flew as fast as we could.” It was in no way the Gallup hospital staff’s fault that I had demanded to be released in the condition I was in.

  While the doctors worked on me, I kept asking Mom how Krickitt was doing. During those physically agonizing minutes and hours the only thing I wanted was for my mother to relieve my emotional and mental agony by telling me that my wife was going to be all right. She wouldn’t say it. She couldn’t say it. What she was keeping from me was that none of the helicopter team expected her to survive. The admitting physician in Albuquerque had given her less than a 1 percent chance of making it. Krickitt’s only hope was a miracle.

  Soon my twin brother, Kirk, arrived from Farmington, our hometown in northwestern New Mexico. He and his wife hadn’t gotten the news until after midnight, but they came as soon as they could.

  “How you doing, Kimbo?” he asked, doing his best to smile.

  “I’ve been better,” I answered. “I need to see Krickitt.”

  “You will,” he said. “Just hold on until they’re ready for you.”

  Meanwhile, the ER team got my nose put back in the right place, set my broken hand, worked on my ribs, gave me a sedative, and got ready to admit me to the hospital. Since they were done working on me, I told them I wanted to see my wife as soon as possible.

  “After you’re admitted, you won’t be able to go see your wife,” someone explained.

  “Then you’re not admitting me.”

  They understandably tried to argue with me, but I wouldn’t listen. I refused to be admitted before I saw my wife.

  They finally agreed to send me to the recovery room to monitor me and said that if I showed some stability I would be allowed to go see Krickitt. She was still in the ICU, and I was told they would take me there in a wheelchair. They warned me about what I was going to see. I was told to prepare myself for a huge shock when I saw the extent of her injuries and the vast amount of machines in her room. But that didn’t matter to me. I was just glad she was still alive.

  When we got to the door to the ICU, I motioned for the orderly pushing my wheelchair to stop. “If there’s a chance she can see me, I want her to see me walking. I’m going in under my own power,” I explained. Then I struggled out of the wheelchair and shuffled through the doorway.

  I was grateful the orderly was right behind me with that wheelchair as I stepped forward, because as soon as I saw Krickitt I fell right back into it. Amazingly, she hadn’t needed surgery, but because of her brain injury she had every possible life support machine hooked up to her. She was tied down to the table, and she was straining against the straps and flailing around with seizures. Her eyes and lips were still deep purple. Her entire body was swollen like a balloon, and her head was the size of a basketball. I could see some tubes going into her mouth and nose and others disappearing under the sheets, and there were IV lines going into both arms and one foot. There was a probe called a camino bolt drilled into her head to measure the pressure between the brain and the skull, with wires coming out of her head and connecting to some of the monitors that literally filled the room.

 
She was sedated and couldn’t talk because of all the tubes, but I was desperate to receive some kind of communication from her. I got up out of the wheelchair again and grabbed my wife’s hand.

  “It’s me, babe,” I said softly. “If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.” Due to the plethora of other, more urgent injuries, we didn’t yet know that the cool, white hand I held so gingerly was broken. I saw no reaction on her face after I spoke to her . . . but she squeezed.

  A flicker of hope flared up inside me. Krickitt was still in there. Somewhere under all those wires and tubes my wife still lived. It was the first sign of life that we didn’t need a machine to measure. While it was seemingly just a small thing, I was ecstatic.

  The doctors weren’t as excited as I was by Krickitt’s response. From their point of view, it was still much more likely that she would die than live.

  It wasn’t long before Krickitt’s parents and her brother Jamey arrived from Phoenix. Like many others, they had spent the agonizing hours of the previous night crying and praying for a miracle. But once they arrived, Gus and Mary Pappas were incredibly calm, even at the sight of their daughter covered with tubes and wires, her face distorted almost beyond recognition.

  Finally my brother Kelly arrived. He had been level-headed enough to wait until after sunrise to make the trip from Roswell when the roads had thawed. The family circle was complete.

  As is usually the case, the visiting hours in the intensive care recovery area were strictly limited. Only immediate family members were supposed to be allowed, and only for thirty minutes at a time. Yet the doctors let us all come and go whenever we wanted to. If any of us had been thinking clearly, we would have wondered why. What we didn’t know was that Krickitt’s doctors had told the staff to let anybody in at any time, since she would be dead within hours.