How Vince Gill Supported Wife Amy Grant Through Her Health Crises: 'It Was Just One Thing After Another' (Exclusive)

While recovering from surgeries and a bike accident, the Christian pop star depended on her husband's care to get her through: "Vince is just steady"

Beginning in 2020, Amy Grant has endured a harrowing list of health issues, including open-heart surgery, a brain injury, throat surgery and shoulder surgery.

“It was just one thing after another after another,” husband Vince Gill tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with the couple for this week's issue.

Through every recovery, Grant never doubted she could rely on the unwavering support of her country-star husband of almost 25 years.

“Vince is just steady,” says the Christian pop icon, who’s 64. “I don’t know all the ways I lean on him. I’m not even aware of it because it’s second nature.”

Grant’s first health crisis came as a complete shock to the couple: Gill was the one seeking medical tests in 2020 after he experienced shortness of breath going up stairs. Grant was with Gill when the cardiologist delivered the results.

“He said, ‘Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your heart is fantastic. You’re just fat and out of shape,’” Gill, 67, recalls with a laugh. “And I said, ‘Well, no kidding, doc. You’re a genius.’”

Jim Wright Vince Gill and Amy Grant for PEOPLE

Jim Wright

Vince Gill and Amy Grant for PEOPLE

Related: Amy Grant Says Her Health Scares 'Made Everything More Precious' (Exclusive)

But then, Gill recounts, the doctor turned to Grant and suggested similar testing. She took issue. She said she felt fine. The doctor pressed, pointing out her family history of heart problems, and she relented. Tests soon revealed that she was suffering from PAPVR (partial anomalous pulmonary venous return), a rare congenital defect that affects blood flow to the heart.

Gill recalls that the doctor warned it would be “catastrophic at some point” without care, so in June 2020, Grant underwent successful surgery.

Because it was at the height of the COVID-19 quarantine, Gill’s hospital visits were severely restricted. “I couldn’t be there for surgery, and I had to come home,” he recalls, “and that was tough.”

Finally, he received permission to visit his wife in her room, and he remembers the sweet relief of that moment.

"She was still out from anesthesia, and I saw her, and it was just the most beautiful, peaceful thing on her face,” he says, and he knew: “She’s fine.’”

With his calendar already cleared because of the pandemic, Gill was able to easily devote himself to his wife’s care. He says he’s been awed by her spirit every time she’s had to convalesce.

 Amy Grant/Instagram Amy Grant following her heart surgery

Amy Grant/Instagram

Amy Grant following her heart surgery

Related: Amy Grant Opens Up About Discovering Genetic Heart Condition and Needing Surgery: 'So Grateful'

“With everything she had to face, she just did it with kindness and grace and 'OK, we’ll get through this one, then we’ll get through that one,’” Gill says. “She’s pretty strong.”

In July 2022, Grant, by then fully recovered from the surgery, was out on her bike when she hit a pothole and fell hard. Knocked unconscious even wearing a helmet, she suffered cuts, bruises and a debilitating brain injury that required hospitalization.

Gill rushed to his wife’s side and canceled his three concerts scheduled for the following weekend. The next week he was able to fulfill a four-night residency at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, not far from the couple’s home, but his wife and her recovery were clearly on his mind.

During one concert, he shared with the crowd that Grant was “getting better every day” and then he introduced their 21-year-old daughter, Corrina, to perform the tribute he’d written to his wife, “When My Amy Prays,” the song that had won him a Grammy for best country solo performance the year before. (Corrina poignantly tweaked the lyrics to “when my mama prays.”)

Grant was forced to postpone all her touring dates that fall, and in a PEOPLE interview in January 2023, she confirmed that her recovery from the brain injury had been arduous.

“It was really depressing,” she said. “Everything was canceled, and I just said, ‘What if I’m never all the way back?’”

She shared that her husband offered comforting counsel: “He said, 'Things happen to people every day, and you just have to take one day at a time, and we're here, and I love you.' And that just kind of made every day of the journey OK.”

Corrina Gill and Vince Gill perform
Corrina Gill and Vince Gill perform

Related: Amy Grant Thanks Fans for Support, Says Bike Accident Recovery Has 'Many Unexpected Hidden Gifts'

Still the challenges kept coming: The following year, Grant had to undergo removal of a cyst in her throat that required her to relearn singing, and she told PEOPLE she also has subsequently required shoulder surgery.

Today, Grant has only the scars to remind her of her surgeries, but it’s also clear she still has to manage some memory loss from the bike accident.

During the most recent PEOPLE interview with the couple, Grant was asked to reminisce about the early days of their marriage, and she had to confess, “My details are all a little fuzzy around it.”

Gill quickly jumped in. “She had a little bike wreck not too long ago,” he explained before fielding the question himself.

“Tag team,” he told his grateful wife. “We’ll be like championship wrestling.”

Jim Wright Vince Gill and Amy Grant for PEOPLE

Jim Wright

Vince Gill and Amy Grant for PEOPLE

Related: Amy Grant and Vince Gill Talk 25 Years Together, Finding a Second Chance at Love After Their First Marriages (Exclusive)

That constancy is obviously part and parcel of a marriage that will turn 25 years old next March. And, the couple says, Grant’s health crises have given them more confidence than ever that their love will sustain them through whatever life throws their way.

Grant relishes telling how, in a quiet and vulnerable moment during one of her convalescences, Gill felt a need to wonder aloud: Would they be OK “if it were ever just us here”? Would they be OK if everything else were taken away?

Grant’s memory is crystal clear on what Gill said next: “We’d be just fine.”

She well remembers, too, how she responded: “Yeah, we would. We’d be just fine.”

For more from Amy Grant and Vince Gill, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.