Michelle Meyners is finishing her second week back at work as a school counselor at Battle Academy and North Hamilton County Elementary, and she has resumed her duties as the softball coach at Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences.
Every day that Paul Meyners sees her face or hears her voice, his heart tells him his wife being with him and their children is a miracle.
"God's still in business," he said with conviction earlier this week as he filled in the blanks of Michelle's refusal to pass through death's door and her miraculous recovery from a brain aneurysm that burst.
It is a story that includes the death of childhood friend and high school softball teammate Bonny Frank Perkins, a dreary Christmas 2015 - one she doesn't remember and her children wish they could forget - and an untold number of prayers offered up for her recovery and return to her family.
Perkins died 24 years ago this month, with the cause a brain aneurysm. She had gotten married just four months earlier.
"Her death probably saved Michelle's life," Paul said of Perkins.
Late this past December, Paul and Michelle had been discussing Bonnie, and the memory of her death was still fresh on Paul's mind when Michelle woke him, saying she didn't feel well.
"That day was Paul's birthday, and we had gone out to eat as a family. The next day was going to be the kids' last at school before the Christmas holidays," Michelle recalled. "I got the worst headache. I've had a migraine, and (this pain) was so much worse, and my feet felt like I was walking in cement."
She remembers nothing more until Dec. 31.
"She'd been baking cookies for our second-grader to take to school the next day, and then she told me the pain was horrible and she got sick," Paul said. "I knew I had to get her to the hospital.
"All I could think about was her best friend dying from an aneurysm bursting. Had we not spoken about her just days prior, I might not have taken it so seriously, wouldn't have felt that sense of urgency. I believe it was God's way of using Bonnie to save Michelle's life."
He talked emergency room physicians into bypassing triage and getting a CT scan immediately. As she was being wheeled out of the scan room, the aneurysm burst.
"The headache was apparently the aneurysm on its way to bursting," Paul said. "When it ruptured, her face just froze - an intense look of terror - and that's when life as we knew it took a different course."
Michelle was rushed to Erlanger's neurological trauma center for surgery. The procedure she had is called coiling. It involves a vascular surgeon going through an artery in the stomach or thigh to repair the ruptured blood vessel, as opposed to opening the skull.
For 21 days, Michelle remained in neurological ICU. On Christmas, nine days after the rupture, Paul took his children to see their mom.
She doesn't remember it.
"In talking with the nurses, we felt Michelle was good enough for all the kids to go down and see her," he said. "We went down, but she had been awake too long earlier in the day. She didn't recognize the kids. She was out of it. It was so sad to see."
Those 21 days in ICU were filled with uncertainly.
"There was a lot of praying," Paul recalled. "It was the most traumatic thing I had ever gone through - how was I going to do all that Michelle does if she's taken from me? I realized I took Michelle for granted."
His 20-year-old daughter Abby, a junior at Lee University, was home for the holidays and stepped up to help with siblings Macie, Lexie and Luke.
New Year's Eve was Lexie's birthday, and when she walked into the room her mother was not only awake but alert.
After another day at Erlanger - though out of ICU - Michelle was transferred to Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation, where even the most optimistic physicians and therapists told her to expect a six-week stay.
She made it out in four, although she'd lost close to 30 pounds, including muscle mass, and her coordination.
"That first day, I couldn't make it from the chair to the bed. I had nothing," she said, recalling the start of a regimen that included occupational, physical and speech therapy.
Paul saw his wife's determination at work, though.
"Michelle is very competitive," he said. "She couldn't stand on her own, but she set her mind to it and we saw improvement daily."
With Michelle's routine restored, the thankful family has been told of prayers being offered on her behalf from coast to coast.
"God has been good," Paul said, "and life is great."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.