Till Near-Death Brought Us Back Together

A customer sent us a very touching story via email, and we wanted to share it with everyone:

“Mark and I have known each other for 12 years. We met in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We are both Active Duty Air Force. We were married in 2005; however, after six deployments between the two of us, three moves, and the stress of raising three children, we were divorced in 2010. We remained friends, raising our kids and continued to share our love for riding our motorcycles despite the divorce.

On May 27th, 2012 Mark was in a motorcycle accident that caused multiple skull fractures, bleeding in his brain and hearing loss in one of his ears. I remained Mark’s Next of Kin and Medical Power of Attorney. We were told his chances of survival were slim to none. After his surgery he was placed in a medical coma for two weeks and things weren’t looking good. As his ex-wife, I had a lot to decide on that could alter his life and had to make some major changes in his recovery plan. He finally came out of his coma, and was in the hospital recovering for a total of 39 days with rehab. He has been staying with us ever since he was discharged from the hospital so we could take care of him and help him heal. He was out of work for six months healing, waiting to be ready for a titanium mesh plate surgically implanted in his skull. He is back to work and has had psychological testing done to see the impact of his accident. He is a fully functioning member of society able to do everything you and I can do; the only exceptions are his hearing loss, a little memory loss and scar on his head. His bike is back and ready to ride!!! This tragedy didn’t destroy us, but brought us closer together.

When he was at Sturgis last year he saw NightRider Jewelry and was in love with everything! When we talked about getting remarried Mark pulled up your website and I was floored at how amazing your jewelry is, so we stayed on there until we found the rings that we now both wear proudly…”Till Death Do Us Part” couldn’t have had a better name! We were married December 1st, 2012 at Rhombus Guys in Grand Forks, North Dakota.”

-Melissa A. Hopkins, SSgt, USAF