#WhatsYourStory Featuring Bobbie Bomar Brown

Bobbie Bomar Brown is a native of Haslet, Texas. She enjoys journaling and uses that outlet in her book, The Unbreakable Cord, to relate her harrowing ordeal as her daughter fights to survive a horrific car accident. The mother of two, she now summers in the Rocky Mountains and winters in Arizona.

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Thank you for inviting me to be a guest on your blog. My writing has been measured by time and events. As a young girl, I recorded daily happenings throughout the pages of my locked diary. Occasionally, I was honest with myself and expressed true feelings about the life I was born into.

Marriage and children marked another passage of time, busyness filled the days and nights. The grocery list and to do list replaced the diary. I would jot down a few raw feelings, but would quickly tear up those pages.

Then the world rushed in and everything stopped. I was discarded for a younger model. How I wanted that pain of betrayal and rejection wiped from my calendar. Within my writing I found a different person, a person who had been locked away all those years. My journaling became my therapy and healing. One time period was filled with what I called, “Journaling through my closet.” As I removed dresses off the hanger, I cried and penned the memories which surrounded that garment. Feelings flooded me, allowing the memories to hold no power over me, I packed my wardrobe in the box marked donation.

Journaling wasn’t a diary of events, but a record of what I was learning about myself. My journal entries became letters to God. Each morning, I told God my darkest secrets. He taught me about life, death, and relationships.

Today, I measure time by how many years since my daughter’s car accident. My writing rescued me from my darkest cavern. This is where my writing took a different path. It was thanksgiving week-end and I had just gotten into bed, when the phone rang. A message no mother should receive, “Your daughter has been in a car accident; you need to get here as quick as you can.”

The doctors said, “The first twelve hours are crucial.” While the nurses prepped her for surgery, I ran downstairs for a cup of coffee. I stopped at the gift shop, and purchased a little stuffed dog. I placed it on her chest, she laughed and called him Woody

Shortly a doctor came in. His words were like a punch in the stomach. “The new x ray showed, “Your daughter’s neck ligaments are torn, and her skull is being held in place by a thin thread, it’s called, occipital cervical dislocation and C1 fracture, often called internal decapitation.” Explaining, he said, internal decapitation is very rare; the skull separates from the spinal column, and is usually fatal. “It missed her spinal cord by less than a millimeter.”

The following hours were so overwhelming. I isolated myself from my feelings and emotions and tried journaling the events. But my heart wouldn’t let my mind form the words, I couldn’t face the truth. So, I used the stuffed dog, Woody, as my voice, I gave him a personality and transferred all my fear onto him. He was my escape. I journaled through the darkest time of my life.

Caregiving for my recovering daughter and court hearings against the drunk driver controlled the next two years. My body moved through time, but my grief remained. I couldn’t journal. Woody sat high on a shelf. I was lost in a spiral circle of time.

Fifteen years later. I decided to take all the little journal pages written through Woody’s voice and write a book. I wanted to share the painful events of each emergency and death through the heart of my faith. I needed to take ownership of my pain, but I couldn’t do it without Woody.

The little dog seemed childish to editors, so publishers never entertained my book. With each rejection, I placed my journaling on hold. Then one day, I received another phone call, too horrific to spell out. I was devastated, frozen with fear and a heart ache I can’t begin to explain today. I was going to a dark place, a place I didn’t want to go. Within the next few weeks, I pulled out my manuscript and re read it, I needed to recall God’s promise of Hebrews 13 8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

This pain was the catalyst that pushed me to finish the book. I wanted to share my journey of how one can trust that God is aware of unexpected news and He is always close.

Almost fifteen years after my daughter’s car accident, I self-published, The Unbreakable Cord.

Today, as I share this blog, my son is recovering from non-cancerous brain surgery. Someone asked, “Did you journal those terrifying moments, so you can write a second book? “

My past writing has made me stronger, it opened up the doors to my emotions. I no longer need a stuffed dog or a locked diary to hide behind. The raw emotions that assaulted me strengthened me and freed me to be me.

I keep woody with me, not as my voice but as my inspiration for the reminder of the creativity that lies within me. I am beginning a fiction novel; however, I won’t be using Woody as my voice, but I bet one character will be a stuffed animal.
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How I love the season of writing I am in now. I find time to open a book by Francine Rivers and spend time in her world.

The Unbreakable Cord

The Unbreakable Cord is the powerful story of one mother’s harrowing ordeal—an ordeal that begins in the trauma waiting area on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.


With the help of a stuffed dog named Woody, author Bobbie Bomar-Brown relates the dramatic story of what happens after learning that her twenty-five-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was injured in a high-speed rear-end crash caused by a drunk driver.


Jennifer has a head wound requiring twenty-six staples and an open-book pelvis break that will require surgery as soon as she is stable. But when an X-ray reveals that her spinal cord is nearly severed, save for a connection of less than a millimeter, the surgery is put on hold…and then she suffers a stroke, leaving her left side unresponsive.


Jennifer will remain in intensive care for a month—with both Bobbie and Woody by her side the whole time. Amazingly, despite the alarming diagnoses and many complications, Jennifer not only survives her injuries but goes on to rehab and moves forward toward healing and forgiveness.


As these overwhelming events unfold, The Unbreakable Cord demonstrates that the most difficult experiences can make a positive impact and become a stepping-stone in strengthening one’s faith in God.

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Where to Buy The Ubreakable Cord

Amazon