Randy Travis and his wife Mary are celebrating a major milestone in Travis' recovery process following his stroke in 2013. The country icon and his wife shared in an interview with CNN that a "huge" step forward came during a recent road trip back to Nashville.

While headed to Nashville from Memphis, Mary recalls, "overhead was a sign, ‘Nashville,’ and he was over in the passenger seat and went, ‘Woo-hoo,’ and he pointed up, and he said, ‘Nashville.'"

"I just sat over there in the driver’s seat and cried," Mary adds, "because I knew then that he read that sign, and he recognized the word, and then he said it. That’s a huge thing."

For a time following his stroke, Travis was unable to listen to his own music; it was "really hard" for him, his wife remembers.

"When I first put his music on, he cried," she shares, "and I thought, 'Okay, we're not ready for that.'"

These days, though, Travis has been listening to gospel music and some of his own hits.

"Music is his soul," Mary says of her husband; Travis, for his part, is enthusiastic about the possibility of, some day, recording new music. The possibility of another stroke, Mary admits, "doesn't enter our minds."

"We are onward and upward," she says.

Since his stroke in 2013, Travis has continued, slowly, but surely, to recover and regain some of his abilities. The country icon is still working to regain conversation skills, but he has re-learned to sing, at least a little bit; he remembers his song’s lyrics and, with his left hand, can form chords on his guitar, though he’s still regaining the use of his right arm.

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