The focus was supposed to be on the music.

It was early August 2008, and Neil Harnett was just about to spend the evening starting a last mix of his new CD, Somewhere, a typically real, impassioned blend of rock, blues, folk and roots music by the popular White Rock singer-songwriter-guitarist.

And then the telephone rang.

"'Hi Neil, there's been an accident...'"

The news was about his daughter, Amy – technically his stepdaughter, but after two decades, as close to him his own flesh and blood.

A bright, popular, upbeat young woman, on the eve of her 26th birthday, she'd had her share of youthful confusion in the past, and struggles to find direction. But the 2000 Elgin Park grad was getting her life together, and enjoyed working at a resort on Stuart Island across from Campbell River.

It was hard to believe any serious harm could have befallen her.

"I expected it to be 'she broke her leg,'" Harnett said.

Instead, the shocking news was she had fallen from the back of a truck, while she and another worker were delivering mattresses to resort patrons.

Details of how and why the accident occurred are muddled and vague (Harnett and his wife, Julia, still have yet to hear a satisfactory account of what happened, despite a WCB investigation and appeals to the co-worker).

But the grim facts were unavoidable. Amy had struck her head, smashing her jaw.

She was in a coma and had been flown to Victoria General Hospital.

No one could tell if she would wake up, and, if she did, what kind of brain damage she might have suffered.

"I just freaked," said Harnett. "My wife was in bed. I walked into the room and she felt the vibe and just started to cry."

They were up all night and took the first ferry for the Island in the morning.

Fast forward a year and a half. Neil Harnett has just come into the offices of the Peace Arch News to discuss the new album, and the launch concert this Saturday (Nov. 7, 8 p.m.) at the Rhumba Room of the Pacific Inn (1160 King George Hwy.).

With him are Julia and Amy.

In person, Amy is a surprise – one could say, a miracle. The brain damage she suffered in the accident is a fact of life, one that she and her family will continue to deal with.

It has slowed things down, simplified the picture from the fast-paced complexities and subtle nuances most take for granted in our daily lives. It has given her some physical awkwardness, and deprived her of the sight in one eye. But it hasn't destroyed Amy.

She's still bright, still funny, with a disarming directness and charm not unlike the whimsical, cartoon-like butterflies she started drawing after she came out of her coma – one of which, with Amy's photo, adorns the sleeve of the new album.

Her reaction to the accident, in retrospect, is also typical.

"That birthday really sucked," is the way she puts it.

You can't tell, without having minute scars pointed out to you, she had to have extensive reconstructive surgery. You can't tell she spent 10 days in a coma before opening one eye, or that she spent a further six weeks in a vegetative state.

"And then one day, we came into the hospital and they said 'Amy talked,'" said Harnett. "We burst into tears."

Only the determination of Victoria General staff to give her therapy – after she was denied access to a rehabilitation facility on a technicality – was responsible for the range of motion she now has.

"Her whole left side wasn't working," said Julia, adding that Amy, a former figure skater, had gone back to the piano exercises she had done as a child to help build motor skills.

Even Amy is surprised to hear her mother relate how she used to have to shower her in the mornings.

"Really?" she asked. "Did you have to do that?"

As the Harnetts point out, one of the factors about brain damage is that it robs the victim not only of learned skills, but the basic building blocks of learning.

There's a lot of ignorance about brain injury, Harnett said, and it isn't in the first rank of fundraising causes.

"It's just not fashionable," he said.

It's one of the reasons partial proceeds of Saturday's concert will go to the Semiahmoo House Society – "among other services," Harnett said, "they provide support for those with brain injuries and the families that care for them."

The Harnetts also plan to launch a web portal – journeyback.com – to provide a place where people can share their "experience, strength and hope when dealing with brain injury or other life challenges."

And there's no way an experience like this, and multiple stresses it puts on a family, wouldn't have an effect on his new album and his music in general.

Harnett is still seeking space for his office – the old one became Amy's room when she moved home from the hospital.

"Music was completely on the backburner," he said.

But now, he said, he feels infused with a new sense of purpose – and a backlog of percolating tunes waiting to get written.

One of the ironies he found, when he finally got back to the album, was that although most of his original songs predated Amy's accident, many had a theme of positivity and hope, of never giving up in the face of hardship.

One of them, Never Quit, picks up on Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous lines: "When things go wrong as they sometimes will..."

Another – the title song – has the lyric "somewhere, under these clouds the sun is shining".

"It's not lost on me," Harnett said.

"Maybe the Universe felt this was part of what I had to do."

v2