Quarantine has brought back the classics for most of us. Board games, baking, and being with family. For one family all these things came together to bring love back to the table.
“It just seemed like it fell in place like it was supposed to be and we feel like it really is supposed to be,” Sanna Montgomery said.
Chris and Sanna Montgomery met in 1972, got married, and had 6 children together. Throughout their 20 year marriage, they lived in a few different states, and eventually, Chris's work moved them to Ketchum.
“We went up there for almost 2 years. while we were there we got a divorce,” Chris said.
So, they went separate ways, for 27 years. Their children would bring them together for birthdays and holidays, but the pandemic brought them a lot closer.
Sanna moved to Boise and needed a safe place to isolate, so she could take of her mom. Coincidentally, Chris also lived in the area. After a conversation or two, Chris said he had an open bedroom that Sanna could safely stay in and shortly after she moved in.
“We decided we better get to know each other again after 27 years. So, we ate meals together, picked up the mail together, and cleaned the house together. Just got to know each other,” Chris said.
The couple enjoyed the occasional slice of pie. On Thanksgiving in 2019, their kids thought they might be getting sweet on each other.
“My mom was going around asking people if they wanted pie and then she asked my dad and said, ‘Chris would you like pie?’ and he just perked right up and said, ‘I sure would.’ Me and Janae and Suzy, my sister, just remember that as being kind of a nudge, nudge. Kind of a, look at what’s going on over,” one of their children Michael Blood said. “I kind of thought, oh of course, but it was a surprise. I didn’t know it had gotten to the point where they had considered that.”
A few months later, Chris and Sanna decided to get remarried.
“To see them sit down together in our living room with a piece of pie and just talk and just sort of reconnecting a little bit without any outside noise, they just had pie and they were just two people connecting again,” Janae Blood said.
They had a small COVID-19 wedding with four of their kids and the other two on Facetime.
“They were apart for so long that them being happy is just awesome for me,” Michael said.
Chris and Sanna call this re-connection their “COVID-19 miracle.”
“Every day is a wonder that it ever happened and that we’re back together, in some ways it feels like we were never apart and other ways it's just brand new,” Chris said.
Some things truly haven’t changed for them. When they were first married, Chris would come home from work and say “Honey! I’m home!”
“I would go running to him. Now anytime I come in, he runs to me.” Sanna said. “It's pretty special to come in and say, 'Honey! I'm home," and have come and be so happy to see me. To see the love in his eyes and the happiness that it brings him. Again, I just think, what a miracle. It’s just a miracle.”
They are madly in love and grateful to have found each other once again with a COVID-19 love story that's as sweet as pie.
