Houston woman divorces, then adopts husband after wreck left him with brain damage

From the moment Chris and James Armstrong married,

they created an unusual blended family.

That's because Chris brought with her, her ex-husband,

Brandon,

they were high school sweethearts who married at 21.

What do you remember about the wedding? I still remember at

being at

the church and

them opening the doors and walking down with my dad and seeing Brandon, you know,

at the end of the aisle and

just knowing that I wanted to spend my life with him and that I loved him

two years after they got married, Brandon was t boned by a moving truck

leaving him with a traumatic brain injury.

He was in a coma and we didn't know when or if he would wake up and what

what would happen?

Although he did wake up, he was unable to take care of himself.

He was in something called post traumatic amnesia at that time.

And so his memory which really, he's never really fully gotten out of,

but his memory was like 10 seconds long.

This was really when it became clear that I went from being a wife

to a caregiver.

My friends even came to me after I'd been doing this for several

months and they said we love you so much and we support you,

but you can't keep doing this. You're drowning. We see you drowning.

So after five years of caring for Brandon

and longing to have Children

and wanting to again be in love with someone who could be in love with her.

Chris decided

to divorce Brandon

whenever I thought about

moving forward with the divorce.

The thing that terrified me the most would be

that I wouldn't be able to care for Brandon.

There we

go.

So she asked a judge

to make her Brandon's legal guardian.

And I told her, you know, nothing's gonna change.

I'm gonna continue to take care of Brandon

forever.

And each year now I have to renew guardianship papers

and they usually ask for a picture and now I get

to send the picture of Brandon with our whole family

and I've gotten to write the judge and tell her,

you know,

I don't know if you remember me, but I've

stood true to what I said and Brandon is an integral part of our family

by creating this family with James Armstrong. She found love for herself and

for Brandon,

it's a sad story, but there's a lot of beauty in it too.

Yeah.

Well, you want to know what moved me the most when I heard the story is that

the thought of you loving her enough

to help care for Brandon.

That's what made me weep.

It's not just letting her, it's loading Brandon too,

you know,

he needs us.

Yeah,

he needs people that love him,

that love looks like feeding him,

maintaining his hygiene,

taking him to therapy appointments

and giving him the willpower

and a little extra willpower to keep living.

I think in the

physicality of him helping with Brandon. That's one piece. I mean,

the fact that

we change Brandon together, it's, it's I I can do it by myself but it's very,

very hard.

Um

James helps me like that. That is such a gift of love. You ready? You can sit down.

I got you,

James cares for bred

in the same fatherly way. He watches he and Chris's Children.

Four year old Meadow

and six year old Juniper.

They snuggle up to the now 38 year old man. They call Uncle Brandon.

Hey, what's up, dude?

Hi, sweetheart. How

are you?

Brandon lives in a nursing home

but every few days

they bring him home

on the day we spent with them.

Juniper nearly jumped in Brandon's wheelchair after school.

It made me feel good to be able to make him smile by playing his favorite artist.

You wanna play some Bob Marley?

Yeah, Bob Marley,

he was unusually engaged on the day we spent with them

today. I feel like especially

you're like super tuned in

which is cool because it's

like it comes and goes, you know,

some days we, we can really connect and some days we can't.

The good days and the not so good ones are chronicled on Chris's Tik Tok account

there. She has found some of the grief support she's always been looking for.

Where do we both work in?

We worked at

Casa

Casa

Mole

Brandon's long term memory is one thing,

the accident didn't take away from him entirely.

She is the one person he recognizes.

Always.

You remember the song

that we um

danced to at our wedding?

Hey Red Cinderella.

Yeah,

he is a very part of who I am because I carry his heart in my heart and I always will.

And so the decisions that I've made to be,

have him in our life be a part of our family is because I can't not,

you know, when somebody is so tied to you, you can't untie that I love you

before we left them.

Chris told us something James said, which shocked us something so unlikely,

so improbable

but so beautiful.

He said if, if some miracle were, you know,

uh treatment happens for people with a brain injury and Brandon can be healed.

He said I want you to be with him. You were with him first.

And I think that

it's,

you know, I don't think that's going to happen, but just the fact that I don't know,

you're just a very special person.

You really are.

I don't think I am.

I

do what I think is right.

You know,

I do what my heart tells me to do.

And then James said this,

I also told her if anything happens to her where she passes away,

I will fight for guardianship.

You will have looked

at.