When Jenna Miller watched her then-husband, Steve Pelaez, leave the house in his bright white cycling kit to go on his typical Friday morning ride with friends, she had no clue that in around an hour their lives would change forever.

While riding down Paradise Drive with other cyclists on April 21, 2017, he was hit by a teenage girl driving in the opposite direction. While heading to drop off her sister at school, the girl abruptly turned left and crossed a double yellow line — right into Pelaez at the front of the pack.

“With only 10 feet of roadway between Steve and her SUV, there was no time to react. My husband’s head violently smashed into the window of the passenger’s side door. His crushed helmet landed on the backseat of the SUV and his body catapulted onto the asphalt, 20 feet away. … Steve had totaled a Ford Explorer with his body. The child who had carelessly turned her 2-ton SUV was crying hysterically and screaming, ‘I killed him! I killed him!’” writes Miller in “The Phenom’s Wife,” her memoir about his accident and partial recovery, her family’s trauma and resilience, and the healing love that she felt spiritually and from the community around her as she navigated this great unknown.

At its core, it’s a “devastatingly beautiful love story” and “a reminder that even in our darkest moments, connection and compassion can pull us through,” she said.

Coming to Marin

Miller was a little apprehensive when she moved to Mill Valley with Pelaez and their two kids in 2016 — in part driven by his love of Mount Tamalpais and its biking trails that helped him “empty his mind” and “breathe life into his soul.”

“I was scared to move to Mill Valley. I thought I was going to be lonely and I wouldn’t fit in — all these fears took over me. It was actually the direct opposite of that. When the accident happened, I was overwhelmed by the loving kindness of the people in Mill Valley and beyond,” she said. “My best friend and partner was gone. This is the man who I met when I was 19. He was my only boyfriend. He was my world, and my world was gone. And instead I was filled with so much love and care.”

People took in their kids like they were their own. Each day, she sat in MarinHealth Medical Center, and then Stanford ICU, wondering what would come next. Food, gifts and cards with thoughtful messages were dropped off on their porch. People asked how they could help — and they showed up in ways she couldn’t imagine.

“I felt so held and cared for at a time that was just devastating and horrific. We had this collective dream of bringing Steve back to life,” said Miller about Pelaez, who was in a coma after the accident.

It’s a journey she shared in a blog on CaringBridge.org, which she started not long after the accident. She wrote in it for 388 consecutive days, finding unexpected community from near and far during a time when it would have been easy to feel alone.

“I needed people to tell me that I was going to OK. I couldn’t do it alone, that was the driving force. It saved me and it helped me get through it. It helped me parent my children. I had people giving me advice, people coming by and saying, ‘I’m a trauma therapist, let me tell you this.’ You’re seeing so much trauma and pain, but then you’re also seeing this beauty of humanity through this experience. I think a lot of that was because of this blog.”

Sharing stories

While she got permission from Pelaez and their two children to write this book, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to put their real-life story out there. But, in turn, she knew that her vulnerability would help others.

“I’m sharing very vulnerable parts of my family. Me, I’m an open book in every way, but I have my children and my former husband in there. The story is our real life and our real life is hard. But, I go back to the whole purpose, which is to help other people. If I had that book on my journey, it would’ve been amazing for me because you just feel so alone. At the end of the day, we all just want to feel heard and seen and validated and cared for.”

For Pelaez, it was eye-opening to read what he and his family went through — many parts of which he wasn’t fully aware of.

“I know that I woke up from a coma and had a happy life but I didn’t know how I got to the hospital, how long I was gone, and who to thank. Seven years later, I read Jenna’s book, and how I got to the hospital became clear and why I survived. I learned all the challenges that everyone went through and how many people helped me. I want to thank all of you who helped me. I am so thankful to Jenna. She helped me wake from a coma; dealt with my stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma; and successfully raised our beautiful children through the trauma. She is an angel. … The book helped me appreciate the life I had to receive that kind of support. I must have done something right. I am learning how much I am loved,” he writes toward the end of the book.

‘Faced tragedy with love’

Miller knows nobody would blame her if she was angry. She has a lot to be angry about, but instead, she “faced tragedy with love.”

“I had begged my husband to stop riding. This was not his first brain injury. He had a massive brain injury in 2013. I could be angry at the girl who did this. It was a wide road on a sunny day. How did she not see them? I could be angry at God, I could be angry at any number of things, but I felt the opposite. I was filled with love. I felt sorry for that girl. I still think about her,” she said.

These days, Miller is finding herself. Throughout the years of caregiving for Pelaez, both through the aftermath of his accident and then while he battled cancer, all while caring for their kids, she felt she lost herself to the “caregiver” role.

While her and Pelaez are still close, they’ve since divorced. She has a new boyfriend — her second ever, who makes her happy. She’s returned to interior design, spends time with her kids, now in college, and works on healing from the trauma.

“I’m definitely rediscovering myself and it feels good. I’m doing it slowly and mindfully because it’s hard. It’s almost scarier than caring for others because you have to face yourself. But the most important thing to me with this whole story is that I’m strong, I’m loving, I’m caring, I’m vulnerable, I’m all those things. But because I put that out into the universe through this blog, and people responded with kindness, that created the magic that saved our family.”