A daughter’s near-death experience and recovery is the heart of a recently published book from a Wayland author.
“Christie’s Journey: The Beat Goes On,” is the first published work from John Bain, a husband and father who retired from television and radio broadcasting after 33 years, most recently at KCII. The book shares how Bain’s daughter Christie went into cardiac arrest in June of 2019 at the age of 29. At first what had seemed related to giving birth to her son two and a half months prior was then discovered to be a birth defect that caused her pulmonary artery to be connected to the wrong side of her heart. Christie underwent surgery in Cleveland, Ohio and shortly after Bain retired in December of 2019 he decided to start chronicling this journey, “The reason I wrote the book was when telling the story of what happened with Christie and all, more than once, more than twice, more than three times, when I would say, ‘The Lord has given this gift and what does he want us to do with it?’ I’m not sure, I don’t know, I’m not smart enough. And many people said, ‘You should write a book,’ and I heard it enough times that I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to try to write a book.’”
Bain’s immediate family didn’t feel ready at first to rehash this traumatic event, but over time they began to open up and share their perspectives of what had happened with him. Bain says it was a therapeutic experience, “There’s an underlying message in here that came through writing the book that wasn’t my goal to bake it in there but it’s in there and that is we need the lord in our lives and we need each other in our lives. We are not designed to be away from each other, we’re designed to be a community and help each other, love each other.”
“Christie’s Journey: The Beat Goes On,” is available for checkout from the Washington and Kalona public libraries, and can be purchased at the Kalona Historical Village and from most online booksellers. Bain will also be doing a book signing on July 31st at 1 p.m. at the Kalona Public Library.