It was far from being a dream wedding.
“I’m wearing jeans, Ben.”
“Best-looking bride in this whole hospital.”
I laughed, because if I didn’t laugh I was going to fall apart.
I had known him since we were eight.
By sixteen, our families had already started joking about a wedding.
By twenty-eight, we had mailed the invitations.
Then life kicked us in the teeth.
I was going to fall apart.
Two months before the ceremony, Ben collapsed at work.
Everything I had ever planned turned to smoke.
“He has an aggressive form of cancer,” the doctor had told us. “Advanced. I’m sorry. We’re looking at months, not years.”
I remembered nodding without understanding the words.
I remembered Ben reaching for my hand and squeezing it too tight.
“We’re looking at months, not years.”
We canceled the ballroom, the flowers, and the caterers.
Instead, I asked the hospital chaplain if he would marry us in Room 407.
