Love, Light, Strength (and Glue) Five years ago, my husband, Miles, who led a tree crew, could work like a horse. A normal week for him was 60-plus hours. In his spare time he built fences and decks for our fixer-upper house. Meanwhile, I fed the kids and ran them around, shopped at Home Depot and paid the bills. Life was hectic but fun. Then one day Miles was overseeing a complicated removal when two trees crashed down in a way they weren't supposed to, and an 80-pound branch struck him squarely in the forehead. He spent two months at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, first in the intensive-care unit, then surgery and finally inpatient rehabilitation. During this time, the only thoughts I allowed myself were in the form of a mantra: "Love, Light, Strength." I'd say it over and over in the shower or while driving when I recognized fear creeping in. When we brought Miles home, he didn't look so bad. You could tell he'd had surgery because of the stitches running from ear to ear over the top of this head. But you wouldn't have guessed that he had been in a coma and that he hadn't opened his eyes for a month. I knew better. I knew that he felt like squashed garbage and that his brain was mush. He wandered from room to room with his head in his hands wondering what had hit him. He felt nauseated and slept most of the day. When he told me he didn't "feel love," I tried to stay calm. Friends and family stepped in and started a fund-raiser, finished our bathroom remodeling, and decorated our Christmas tree. I called Victoria at the arts center where I had been volunteering and said, "I'm sorry I can't finish writing the auction catalog." "Don't be silly," she said. Let us know what we can do. Somehow I had taken in the false information that rehabilitation from brain injury would take no longer than a year. "O.K.," I told myself. I can do anything for a year. In the hospital, the family matriarchs - Miles's mother and mine - had taken charge, but at home I committed to being my husband's champion. I made calls and appointments, created schedules and wrote a blog to share updates on his health. With our children I sought to be like Roberto Benigni's character in "Life Is Beautiful." Remember his brilliance with the boy in the concentration camp, all humor and games? Children need not understand such horrors. So my thinking was: Why not put all my energy into making their lives simple and fun? I sang songs in the car, took out books at the library, played with Barbie and trucks on the floor, and never, ever said no. My father helped us to get our workers" compensation organized. "Wow," he said, surprised by Miles's pay stubs. He was doing all right. Though embarrassed, at 32, to have to share the details of our finances with my father, I was proud of the life that Miles and I had built. And the system actually worked: workers" compensation (called Labor and Industries in Washington State) would pay us roughly $4,000 a month, 65 percent of Miles's average earnings, which would suffice for a while, but I knew it wouldn't be long before we would feel the pinch. A year went by, then two. Financially we were going under. I worried about losing our home. Eventually I managed to get a full-time job in Seattle, but I had to deal with long hours and a long commute when all I wanted to do was to take care of my hurting family at home. One day I got a call at my desk that brought me to my knees, with the school nurse saying that my daughter, who was in first grade, "had an accident." My heart raced and tears spilled down my red-hot cheeks. I was gathering my keys to head to the hospital when she said: "She needs a new set of pants. She doesn't want to wear the extra ones we have. SARAH KISHPAUGH lives in Edmonds, Wash.