Amy Grant has shared the frank advice her husband and fellow singer, frequent duet partner Vince Gill, gave her while she recovered from her traumatic brain injury.
The Grammy-winning Christian singer-songwriter, 65, was hospitalized in 2022 after hitting a pothole while cycling and being thrown from her bike. The accident left her unconscious for around 10 minutes.
Reflecting on the difficult recovery period on Wednesday’s episode of the Wild Card with Rachel Martin podcast, Grant said: “I just remember in the fall of 2022 when my world was very quiet. I just remember saying to Vince, 'What if this is all I get back? What if this is it?’ Because, to me, it's like the world is in a conversation, and I am down the hall and in a back bedroom. This is like my response time.
“I love people making me laugh. I love delivering a great one-liner,” the “Baby Baby” artist added. “But that doesn’t happen when you’re like three steps behind the rest of the room.”
Grant recalled her husband of more than 25 years bluntly told her: “Amy, life happens to every one of us every day. A virtuoso musician could have a stroke and never be able to pick up their instrument again. All you do is you just take the hand you’re dealt that day and live the life that you get.”
In November 2022, Grant returned to live performances for the first time since her injury. She later admitted she “was nervous” during that first performance in Memphis, Tennessee, and ended up forgetting the “lyrics to songs that I wrote.”
“I’m just on a healing journey, but this time here. You know, love and kindness is also very healing, and I’m not kidding — I feel filled up from head to toe,” she told Fox News at the time.
She also thanked her Gill, 69, for his support and “patience” during her recovery.
“I think early on, I said, ‘What if I’m different, what if I’m not the same?’ and he said, ‘Hey, every day we wake up a little different, and we love each other, and it’s good,’” she said. “I feel like my old rascally self.”
Grant and Gill have been married since 2000 and share a blended family of five children: three from Grant’s previous marriage to singer-songwriter Gary Chapman; one daughter from Gill’s first marriage to Janis Oliver; and one daughter, Corrina, whom they welcomed together in 2001.
During his residency at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in August 2022, Gill was joined on-stage by Corrina, who delivered a sweet musical tribute to her mom.
“We haven’t been doing [‘When Amy Prays’] much, but because of her accident and everything she’s been going through we’ve been thinkin’ a lot about her, and I thought how sweet it would be for her youngest to sing the song I wrote for her,” Gill told the crowd.
Throughout her performance, Corrina made a heartwarming change to the tune, replacing the chorus lyrics from “when my Amy prays” to “when my mama prays.”
