By Kristel Zelaya
Chris and Alison Wilson met at a Chi Alpha Bible study circa 2002 at Pittsburg State University. Chris was smitten with Alison’s homemade brownies. Yet as time went on and they spent time together with mutual friends, he was smitten by much more than brownies. By 2003 they were a couple, and by 2004, Chris was ready to propose.
“Alison has always been tech savvy,” Chris says, “and via chatroom had become friends with the mother of the lead singer of the Christian rock band 12 Stones. I snooped on her computer and got in touch with the mom.”
His “snooping” yielded an epic marriage proposal in April 2004: during a 12 Stones concert in Tulsa, Chris was called on stage and proposed to Alison in front of the band and entire audience. On August 28, 2004, the pair married.
From her wheelchair, Alison flashes a silent yet radiant smile as Chris recounts the story.
A Painful Turn
The early days of their romance were idyllic, but not without challenges. Alison’s mother, having suffered from cancer for nearly a decade, passed just one month before the couple’s wedding, while Chris was on a short-term missions trip in Honduras.
Yet after their wedding, life was off to an exciting start. The young couple bought their first home in Springfield, Missouri, bought a dog, and began to establish careers, Chris in graphic design and Alison in writing, editing, and the non-profit sector. They enjoyed travel and were contemplating starting a family. In 2011 they moved to Kansas City, purchased their dream home, began making friends, and settled into a church.
During a Sunday evening service in March 2012, Alison began to feel nauseous. The Wilsons went home. By midnight, they realized the situation was dire when Alison’s eyes were no longer aligned, and her speech became slurred. At the emergency room, doctors initially suspected meningitis. Not until later was it discovered she had suffered a massive brainstem stroke, with mysterious blood clots breaking free, passing through a previously unknown hole in her heart, and lodging in the basilar artery at the base of her neck. At 31 years old, Alison was robbed of her capacity to move or speak.
The First Decade
Sitting beside his wife in her room in the nursing home portion of Maranatha Village, an AG-founded retirement community in Springfield, Missouri, Chris, now 43, unravels the early days following Alison’s stroke — nearly 13 years ago. He often holds her hand or arm as he speaks, looking to her to confirm details and refresh his memory, which she does through small movements of one hand.
Even while on life support in ICU, Alison proved she was still very present. “I knew she was still there when a friend from high school who she went to prom with walked in to visit her and her face lit up!” Chris says.
Experiencing “locked in syndrome” — which references a person being mentally and emotionally present in their body yet unable to communicate — Alison was released from ICU after one month and transferred to a rehab hospital in Nebraska where she spent three months. There she was able to try the first of many iterations of assistive communication devices, including tapping a button with her toe that caused activity on a connected computer. Yet insurance all too soon ran out and they returned to the Kansas City area in hopes of continuing her recovery. The ensuing years were a struggle not only to cope with a new and painful set of life circumstances but also with the heavy burdens of medical complications, insurance limitations, caregiving, and more.
Following the sale of their Kansas City dream home and moving from Missouri to Kansas for Medicaid benefits, Chris’ old boss in Springfield reached out with a job offer. Alison, who was born in Springfield and has family in the area, had already been desiring to return. In 2015, they made to trek back to Springfield, having purchased a home that, though abandoned for seven years, had been designed to be wheelchair accessible and was perfectly suited to their needs. Chris’ mother and nephew moved into the newly finished basement, with his mother helping tremendously in Alison’s care.
Maranatha and the Struggle for Momentum
Ongoing medical flareups and other stressors continued plaguing Chris and Alison, even as they worked to find ways to move forward together. Alison continued to serve and bless, keeping a blog during the early days of her illness (typing using subtle movements in her left hand to activate a connected switch), donating her hair to Locks of Love, and even participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. When an illness-turned-sepsis altered her mental state in 2016, Chris shares that he began to reach a breaking point.
With painful candor he says, “It was hard for me to sustain the momentum of caregiving when I couldn’t even recognize my wife. She finally was able to receive some medicine that helped, and we were able to connect again, but I was doing the bare minimum for her and looked for every opportunity to get away and find a sense of normalcy. That left my aging mom struggling to pick up my slack.”
Through their whole process, Chris had been wholly against putting Alison in a long-term care facility, not wanting his young, beautiful wife to be hurt or taken advantage of. Yet the kind rebuke of a friend challenged Chris to open his eyes — despite his desire to do the best for Alison, he was no longer able to give her the best quality of life by keeping her in their home. In 2023, after much research, Chris helped Alison settle into her new home at Maranatha.
“It was painful to make that decision,” Chris says. “Yet now that she’s at Maranatha, Alison is getting therapies again, is up in her chair every day, goes to lots of activities, receives more visitors, is making friends with staff, has medical care that would otherwise require trips to the doctor, and more. She even has a new communication device and is writing again. She emails with friends from all over and uses her computer to control the lights in her room, turn on music, things like that. And I still see her nearly every day.”
He continues, “Alison has survived and endured so much. Yet still she smiles and has a good attitude. It puts everything into perspective, especially when I hear other people complaining. I spent a lot of time being mad at God, wondering how He could allow this to happen to someone so wonderful. Sometimes I still struggle. But for me as a mere human to think I could know what He is doing across the grand scheme of all creation is pretty silly. We know Jeremiah 29:11 and we know His plan is not to harm us.”
Alison herself cites Joel 2:25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.”
Commitment and the Golden Rule
Chris, in addition to full time work and visiting Alison regularly, also now partners with Maranatha Village in their communications endeavors. He works alongside CEO Brian Miller and resident and retired AGWM missionary Jerry Falley.
Falley says, “Looking across Maranatha Village, one sees many examples of commitment. But one that captures my attention is that of Chris and Alison. Watching them flesh out life as a couple and all that has gone into her care is a touching story. Then, to see Brian’s commitment to do everything possible to help the couple reach their goals is admirable. Alison being able to speak to her husband by using her toe to put the words ‘I love you’ on the monitor is simply amazing! Their relationship is a treasure. The thread of God’s faithfulness woven through this incredible story is evident. It is a testimony that will encourage hundreds of believers facing their own challenges.”
Alison recalls that therapists referred to Chris as a “rockstar husband.”
“I learned I shouldn’t take that for granted,” she says, using her thumb to indicate each letter as Chris carefully quotes through the alphabet.
The couple shares that they’ve had to become much more intentional and patient in learning to communicate with one another. Chris also expresses optimism about the ever-improving capabilities of assistive technology.
He says, “People often say things like ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ I immediately think about how I know Alison would do the same for me. It’s a pretty evident example of the Golden Rule.”
And above all — beyond all human love, help and hope — Alison’s eyes are on the love and healing of Jesus. “Romans 8:28 was one of the epitaphs on my mother’s headstone,” she writes. “I think there is time for healing, whatever it looks like.”
