NEW YORK, NY.- When Kimberlee Stevenson married John Murray on April 30, 2021, “we thought the worst was behind us,” Murray said. “We were ready to start our lives together.”
“We had both been through so much,” Stevenson said.
And for the first six months, life was indeed good.
The two first connected in March 2016, when Stevenson picked up one of Murray’s books, “Until I Saw Your Smile” at her library in Chesapeake, Virginia. Murray is the author of more than 40 romance novels, and Stevenson is a fan of the genre.
Their commonality ended there.
Stevenson, now 41, had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 2 1/2, and raised by her mother, and at the time, was single and did not have children. Murray, now 60, was 18 years older, divorced, had two sons from that marriage — Jontae, 25, and Joshua, 29 — and was convinced he would never marry again.
After reading his book in three days, Stevenson friended Murray on Facebook, but the communication ended there.
In January 2018, he emailed her and explained how, through following her on social media and reading her blog, he felt in awe by her accomplishments (like running a 5k race), and unbeknown to Stevenson, had made her the main character of his next novel, “Kicked to the Curb.” He asked if she would review the manuscript for factuality and authenticity. She agreed. “There was an overwhelming feeling of how accurately he had captured me,” she said.
They talked or emailed, sometimes several times a day, before meeting at the Cerebral Palsy Conference in Suffolk, Virginia, where she was speaking, in March 2018. Their friendship quickly deepened, then blossomed into a relationship.
By 2019 they were inseparable. The following few years brought challenges: Stevenson had several strokes. COVID kept them separated for 101 days. “That was agonizing,” she said.
And so, following their 2021 wedding at the Butcher’s Son in Virginia Beach, they were in honeymoon bliss. There were book tours, trips and a connective routine they created at home.
In November their upswing plummeted. Stevenson, who was at the gynecologist for a checkup, was told that the surgery performed in January to shrink the fibroids preventing her from getting pregnant was unsuccessful.
“She said I’d never have children,” Stevenson said. “I left the office, got in my car and cried. I had no idea how I was going to tell John. Having another child was all he wanted.”
Murray was unfazed.
“Her doctors have always been wrong about Kim’s capabilities,” he said. “Why should she believe what this doctor said?”
Murray suggested she make a list “of everything doctors insisted I would never do, like walk, talk or graduate from college, and how I proved them wrong,” she said. “He was right.”
The optimism didn’t last long. That night Murray’s father called to tell him his mother, who had Alzheimer’s, had died unexpectedly. Two weeks later Stevenson’s grandfather died.
“I was a mess. We both were,” Stevenson admitted. “Life felt cruel and unfair. Our worlds were falling apart. We put smiles on our faces so people would stop asking us questions and if we were all right.”
The couple went from one burial to another and Murray, who had always been prolific, forced himself to finish a Christmas novel timed specifically for the holiday. Then he stopped writing.
“I was mourning for my mom,” who had been his first reader, he said.
Toward the end of December 2021, Stevenson, who had felt nauseated, took a home pregnancy test. When a plus sign appeared, Murray drove to Target to purchase a digital one, “just to be sure,” he said. “We didn’t need it. When Kim decides to do something, she just wills it.”
Two weeks later her doctor confirmed she was pregnant.
During the first few months of 2022, they told only Stevenson’s sister, mother and Murray’s father of the news. She started to show. A shower was planned. A baby’s room was decorated.
Numerous tests were performed to make sure their child was healthy, “because I was a high risk, 39-year-old stroke survivor with cerebral palsy and fibroids,” said Stevenson, who runs a blog called Southern Roots Kitchen. She also works as a youth contractor specialist for the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, which offers employment services. She documented the experience in a journal for herself and her son. “I wanted him to know how much he was wanted, how hard it was to get here, and to cherish the memories,” she said.
Then disappointments followed. Murray, unable to write, grew more depressed. Stevenson was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, followed by COVID, again, and in July, put on bed rest until her delivery date.
“I felt hurt, angry and defeated,” she said.
Murray, who called this time “a season of grief,” said, “we were desperate for a moment to breathe without something bad happening. We just wanted a normal life.”
On Aug. 26, 2022, after a C-section and difficult birth, Steven Earl Murray was born.
“I was exhausted and overwhelmed, but the relief to physically see him, hold him and touch this healthy child was incredible,” she said.
For Murray, it rekindled his hope.
“Life has a way of revealing more pain than you thought possible,” he said. “The two of us went through everything together. That toughened us and deepened our love. Having Steven has as well.”
Their first year with Steven flashed by. The couple thrived as parents, and life, for the first time, “felt good,” Stevenson said. Which was a little scary. “When you live in trauma, and you experience joy, you experience it differently because you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said.
In July, after almost two years without scribbling notes or starting a chapter, Murray found inspiration while visiting his father in Aylen Lake, Canada, for his yearly trip.
“He called to say he had ideas, and was writing things down,” Stevenson recalled. “I could hear excitement in his voice. I knew I got him back.”
But it was during Stevenson’s weeklong work trip in Las Vegas where Murray, who accompanied her, had an unstoppable bout of creativity, and wrote the first 50,000 words for his new novel, “Where Broken Hearts Go,” which was published in January.
“Steven was with Kim’s mom at home, so there were no distractions,” Murray said. “I fell in love with writing again.”
If difficulties have brought the pair closer together, having Steven cemented a relationship built on love, books, trust and togetherness.
“John is an incredible support system,” Stevenson said. “He’s taught me to slow down and take care of myself first. Steven has taught me how to smile at life and look for the joy in every day.”
She added that she “got more than I expected. I never thought I’d get married, have a baby, or be a mother. I was happy being married to John, but this is a different type of happiness. This has been the most healing experience.”
For Murray, that desire for “becoming a normal couple with a child, we got there,” he said. “I’m a better man as a husband and a father, to all my boys. I was aimless for a while. Kim gathered me and made me whole. I’m a romance writer who created my own romance and family.”
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
