The Vow

We went to see the movie, The Vow yesterday and it was good, but not spectacular. The movie is about a young couple who fell in love, married, and then were in a serious car accident. When the wife came out of a coma, she had no memory of her husband. The husband worked to win his wife back and the movie ended with their relationship seemingly going in the right direction, but not yet back together. Before the credits there was a quick photo and text about the movie being based on a true story, which I had to check out.

My research found that the true story is a lot better than the edited version in the movie. The couple, Kim and Krickitt Carpenter married in 1993 and within 10 weeks of their wedding, they were in a very serious car accident, in which, Krickitt almost died. She survived, but when she came out of the coma, she had absolutely no memory of Kim, her husband, and to this day has lost all memory of two and half years of her life. The greatest omission of the movie is the Carpenter’s faith; devout Christians, they say it was their faith that kept them together through their terrible ordeal.

Rebuilding their relationship was difficult, although both tend to downplay the struggle. At one point, Kim thought their marriage would not work, but he wouldn’t give up; “I made a vow before God,” he explained, “until death do you part.” Krickett later said that, “I would love to say that I fell in love with him again because that’s what everybody wants to hear, but I chose to love him and that was based on obedience to God, not feelings… I chose to love him because I made a vow.” Their wedding vows kept them together when both found they were married to strangers – Krickett because she had no memory of her husband, Kim because the brain injury caused significant changes in the wife he had grown to love. It is a challenge to all of us to live out our wedding vows – until death does us part.