BRIGHAM CITY -- Sometimes it takes something major for two people to realize they're in love.
That's the case for Christina Hoehn and Curtis Weeder.
The two were married for five years and divorced in 2002. They have an 11-year-old daughter, Cassidy.
And they'll re-marry in August.
They were brought back together when Christina suffered two massive strokes in April 2007. She was 35.
"We were two people that were on opposite sides," Curtis recalls of the time when the two decided to go separate ways. "I was controlling and she was demanding."
Christina was in a coma for several weeks after the strokes.
She woke up, with half her brain function gone. She's been working to re-build her life, including her relationship with her ex-husband.
"He is my best friend," she typed.
"I am lucky to have of care of me."
This week, Christina was able to move out of rehabilitative care for the first time since the strokes.
She'd lived more than two years at the Brigham City Nursing Home, now renamed Willow Glen Health and Rehabilitation.
She's also spent time at hospitals in Ogden and Logan, Curtis said.
But coming home to a new house Curtis built especially for her needs was exciting for Christina.
Typing with one finger on a computer, Christina expressed her excitement.
"I thought the day never live at home," she typed. "The day is here."
The two told of a long struggle for Christina to re-learn everything she now can do.
She still has a long way she hopes to go. Learning to swallow and write are tops on her immediate list of goals.
"I will talk again," she wrote.
Curtis remembers well the last words his former and future wife ever said.
They were: "Go ahead and tell him everything he wants to know."
Curtis said she spoke those words to nurses when he asked her for permission to get information on her condition from medical personnel.
Shortly after she made those comments, Curtis said Christina slipped away to a state that seemed near-death.
"(The family was) there pretty much to say goodbye," he said. "That's what the doctors were saying. ... There were really no signs of life, no body movements."
Her head fell to one side, he said, noting that onlookers kept moving it to a straight position.
But then after about 10 weeks, Christina moved her big toe.
"It wasn't a week that had gone by that she was standing up," Curtis said.
It was then that she started needing much support from family and friends.
At first, Christina's boyfriend at the time of her stroke was a frequent visitor.
But it wasn't long before she literally chased him away when she became agitated and slapped him repeatedly.
Curtis said family members discussed who could help Christina the most and he seemed to be the logical choice.
"I had to love her if I was going to take care of her," he said.
But Curtis said he faced some uphill legal battles to be named by the court as having guardianship and conservatorship of Christina.
"She couldn't give me power of attorney because she couldn't sign anything," he said. "Everyone wanted to know what I had to gain financially. ... The truth is, I've had a lot of out-of-pocket expenses helping her."
Typing with her one finger, Christina said she appreciates what Curtis has done for her, taking her home for long visits each night for many months as she became more and more functional.
He also was a force behind discovering Christina had ovarian cancer the summer of 2008 so she could receive life-saving treatment for that, the two agreed.
She wrote that she's happy with her plans to marry him.
"I am lucky to find a good man to marry again," she wrote.
Curtis said he's learned from caring for his former and future wife. He's found ways to help her relearn basic skills and he's also become accustomed to feeding her through a tube in her stomach without worrying about what others think of the process.
"We take so many things for granted that we can all do," he said. "She had to re-learn all these things."
Curtis said he's happy to think back to where Christina has been and where she is now.
"She's come so far -- from the brink of death twice. She's happy because she is a mom again and can do things around the house."
And Curtis admits he's changed while helping Christina.
"It's not about me," he said. "It's about her. It's about Cassidy."
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