Christmas Miracle

How important is it for Ron Spering to decorate his property for Christmas? Well, you could say it’s literally a lifesaver. Spering nearly lost his life when he blacked out and crashed while driving along I-75 in March of 2023. 

"I was driving on 75 and passed out,” Ron Spering said, minutes before he turned on his Christmas lights for the first time this season on Thanksgiving evening. "I had a bad heart valve. Thank God nobody else was involved with it. Nobody else got hurt. No other cars were involved. I just drove off the road into a tree. For two weeks, they were saying they couldn't tell my wife whether I'd make it. And then they said, 'And if he does, we don't know if he'll be able to walk.' Ten screws in my back, seven broken ribs, broken sternum, broken coccyx, severe concussion. At one point they stopped my heart and put me in a coma and all kinds of stuff. I have like an hour's total memory of the first month. The whole thing was harder on my wife Pam than it was on me."

Sounds like he’s lucky to be alive.

"Yeah, absolutely,” Spering said. "Big time.”

When things were at their darkest, Spering's daughter had an idea.

"When he was in the hospital, he had sepsis,” said Pam Spering, Ron’s wife of 47 years. "He was really out of it and loopy. And they had him on all kinds of machines. My daughter bought him a little Christmas tree, and we put it in the window of the hospital room and she said, ‘That's going to help dad remember and pull him through.' Sure enough, it did. We'd go in there and say, 'You're getting ready for Christmas. You've got to get better. You've got to eat something. You have to.' He lost almost 50 pounds. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't do anything. But, you know, we kept pumping him up. 'Come on! We're waiting for you on Marco. We need you to get better.’"

As news of Spering’s accident spread across the island, he was flooded with get-well cards.

“People have been very, very supportive,” Spering said. "I mean, the town and everybody's encouraging. With the accident last year, I think we got literally 250 get-well cards, mostly from people I didn't know."

As the time ticks down to 5:30, Spering is ready to turn on his light display for the first time. It's like the feeling a kid has on Christmas Eve. 

 “Oh, yeah,” Spering said. "It’s showtime.”

Spering walks to the two circuit breakers at either end of his home. As he flips on the first breaker, lighting up half of the display, the first carful of Christmas light peepers pulls up. The car's front window rolls down, and a hearty "Good job!” comes from inside the car. “Thank you! I love doing it!” Spering yells back.

So, what’s the payoff for all of the work Spering puts into his Christmas display each year?

“There's a lot of things that just encourage me to keep going,” Spering said.

“He has a book out there that people sign,” Pam said. “Often, the comments are so touching and nice. He'll stay up late after I go to bed and read the comments. Then, first thing in the morning, I go through all the pages and read all the nice comments." 

One repeat visitor’s comments are especially meaningful to Spering.

“There are so many stories and anecdotes,” Spering said. “Someone wrote in the book, 'I'm here with Suzy Q or whatever, and this is our first date.' I didn't pay too much attention to that. Then two or three years later, the same guy writes in there. 'You won't remember, but we were here on our first date, and I just proposed to Suzy Q out in front of your display.' Then three years later, he writes, ‘Well, maybe now you remember, we just brought our newborn baby."

Of course, there is a tangible payoff for Spering’s hard work. He collects donations for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“This year, we'll take the grand total hopefully over $100,000,” Spering said. “People have been great. I was really humbled by the whole thing. Every family has something that they've gone through or a family member or somebody that has a problem. Seeing this hits home for a lot of people. They want to do something. And that's a good way to help out. So, they donate. You know, Marco Island is justifiably known as a paradise, but its real beauty is its people.”