Kim and Krickitt Carpenter: The Vow
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Kim was a coach at New Mexico Highlands University when he called in an order for a baseball coach’s jacket. Krickitt worked as customer sales rep for the company. Their relationship flourished over the phone and then they finally met in 1992. A year later, Kim and Krickitt were married.
Less than two months after their wedding, in November 1993, Kim and Krickitt were in a horrific car accident. Their white Ford Escort was involved in a collision with two trucks. The right fender of their car clipped the left rear corner of one of the trucks. As the car spun out of control, a pickup came from behind and rammed into the driver’s side of the car. The impact sent the car careening into the air. It sailed 30 feet, slammed back on the ground and rolled one and a half times then slid upside down for 106 feet, stopping on the shoulder of the road. It took more than 30 minutes to cut Krickitt out of the car. Doctors realized that her situation was grave. The first concern was the swelling in her brain and the second was that her blood pressure was dangerously low. Over the next few days, Krickitt began improving. She was alert but technically in a coma. Soon Krickitt started sitting up, then standing, then shuffling across the room. She began to eat soft foods. “Sometimes she would look at me or at the food, but much of the time, she simply stared straight ahead at the wall,” says Kim. One day, Krickitt was working with a therapist probing her for what she remembered. When asked who her husband was, Krickitt said, “I’m not married.” Kim was devastated.
THE VOW
Over the next few days, Kim prayed and wondered how he would adapt to this new life. Not only would her body be different but so would her personality. The frontal lobe of her brain had been damaged – the part that controls personality, emotions and decision-making. “The encouraging part of Krickitt’s recovery was that somehow her faith in God had remained intact,” says Kim. Kim however couldn’t seem to build more than a casual friendship with Krickitt no matter what he did or how hard he tried. Kim realized that they could still have a life but it would not be the life that he had been looking forward to. “As hard as it was, I knew God must have preserved her like this for some great purpose He could see that I couldn’t,” says Kim.
On January 13, 1994, almost seven weeks after the accident, Krickitt moved into her parents’ house in Phoenix. Though they showed her all the wedding videos and photos, Krickitt still had no connection to Kim or any interest in creating one. “Regardless of how my wife felt about me, I still loved her,” says Kim. He made weekly trips from Las Vegas to Phoenix to be with her. Soon doctors thought a visit to their apartment in Las Vegas might jog her memory, but when she visited, Krickitt was a stranger in her own home.
Then in April 1994 Krickitt finally went home. Kim says it was like living with 2 women in one body. Sometimes Krickitt would work at restoring their marriage then, due to the head injury, she would have erratic mood swings. “There were moments I would get glimpses of the woman I had married that returned for a split second,” says Kim. Krickitt says she knew there was something special about Kim because he went out of his way to be with her and help her. “I figure if I fell in love with this guy before, I could do it again,” she says.
“I had stood before God and a church full of people and promised to provide for and protect Krickitt through times of challenge and need,” says Kim. “I meant those vows then and would honor them now. I just didn’t know how.” Kim and Krickitt started seeing a counselor. He told them they didn’t need to get Krickitt to remember her old life. He told them to start new memories. Kim started dating Krickitt all over again. In 1996, they had a rededication wedding ceremony. “We never again tried to jog Krickitt’s memory,” says Kim. “From that moment on, we gave it up to God.” They spent much of 1996 on the talk show circuit and their story was featured in numerous newspapers and magazines. Their first book, The Vow: The Kim and Krickitt Carpenter Story, was published in 2000. Several major motion picture studios came to them about making a movie. They signed a deal in 1996 and finally on February 14, 2012, the movie, The Vow, was released.
In 2000, Danny was born and in 2003, LeeAnn followed.
Kim was 14 years old when he first learned about Jesus Christ. “It wasn’t a quick process, but in time I came to fully trust and follow Jesus as my Savior,” he says. Krickitt learned about Jesus from a little booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws. She went to college and got involved in the Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, CA (Chuck Swindoll was her pastor).
