It was the summer after my accident when I reconnected with Sara. It had been a couple of months since I developed Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS), and I was already feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the reality of living with a concussion. So, as a family, we decided that we desperately needed a holiday to reset, and we chose Denmark.

I first met Sara back in my twenties. One Sunday morning, she suddenly turned up at our church while completing her Erasmus year in our hometown. Having recently lived in Sweden, I was desperate to keep my connection to Scandinavia alive and wanted to continue speaking Swedish. I had actually prayed to God to send me a Swedish friend now that I was back home.

Then, Sara showed up.

I still remember the day my dad introduced us. Cool, I thought, a Scandinavian girl I can become friends with. But at the same time, I secretly questioned it: why would God send me a Danish person instead of a Swedish one? Danish and Swedish are similar, but not similar enough for me to practice my Swedish.

But God knew exactly what He was doing. He didn’t want me to have a language partner; He was sending me a lifeline for the future.

In that Cruel Summer of 2024, while on holiday in Denmark, I decided to reach out to her. We hadn’t been in touch for over ten years, but I just felt I wanted to reconnect. After all, she had practically become part of our family during her year abroad, spending endless Sundays having lunch at our house and even earning a nickname made from our family surnames. It just felt like the perfect moment to reconnect.

When I messaged Sara, she immediately invited us over to her home for dinner. I was delighted, though her reply came with an unusual schedule for the evening. She stated that we were welcome between 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM. She then said the kids would play from four to five, and we would eat from five to six.

For anyone else, a two-hour catch-up with a friend you hadn’t seen in ten years might seem unusual or awkward. But for me? It was perfect. It was exactly what my injured brain needed. If only everyone could do the same... I thought to myself.

The truth is, when you are living with a concussion, social events can be a constant source of anxiety. So Sara’s structured timeline removed that pressure and gave me what I needed: control.

It wasn’t long into our visit before I opened up about my car accident and its impact on my health, explaining how lost I felt navigating the unknown of a concussion. Hearing this, Sara stopped cooking and told me that she knew all about concussions, as her husband had been battling one since the pandemic.

Suddenly, it clicked. That strict, two-hour timeline that had initially seemed so unusual wasn’t just a weird Scandinavian thing. She was protecting her husband.

And then, it clicked again. I finally understood why God had sent me a Danish friend all those years ago instead of a Swedish one. It was because years down the line, in the middle of my biggest crisis, I would need to sit in a kitchen in Denmark to finally be understood by someone who fully knew the impact of the invisible battle of a brain injury.

Sitting there in her kitchen, everything finally made sense, and that divinely timed moment back in my 20s felt exactly like the opening lines of Taylor’s Mastermind:

“Once upon a time, the planets and the fates
And all the stars aligned
You and I ended up in the same room
At the same time.”

Mastermind, Midnights ¹

Since that day, seeing Sara has become our essential summer routine. She is one of the few people in this world who truly understands me. She understands the physical and emotional pain of my ongoing PCS battles, but she also understands my specific perspective as a mum trying to navigate it all.

But more than that, she also offers something unusual. Because her husband also has a concussion, she lives my husband’s reality every single day. So she gives voice to his perspective, helping me see and value his struggles, even when my own pain makes them hard to see.

The truth is, we don’t keep in close touch throughout the year. For obvious reasons, she has a tremendous amount going on, and so do I. But distance doesn’t mean the special bond isn’t there. Just knowing someone out there completely empathises and shares my lived experience makes a world of difference.

Maybe this is the real reason we keep being drawn back to Denmark every summer; my soul needs to be around Sara after a draining year. And throughout the year, when I feel misunderstood by so many people, I think of her because sometimes it feels like she really is:

“the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking.”

’tis the damn season, evermore ²

I might not have gotten the Swedish language partner I originally prayed for, but in a life full of trauma because of the difficulty of being understood with this invisible condition, det är fint att ha en vän. Or as Taylor says,

“It’s nice to have a friend.” ³

It’s Nice To Have A Friend, Lover

The Concussion Girl

1. Swift, Taylor. “Mastermind” Midnights. Taylor Swift, 2022 ↩︎
2. Swift, Taylor. “’tis the damn season”, evermore. Taylor Swift, 2020. ↩︎
3. Swift, Taylor. “It’s Nice To Have A Friend”, Lover. Taylor Swift, 2019  ↩︎