Our wedding is tomorrow. Three months ago, amid planning for our big day, I turned to the love of my life, who was sitting on the couch next to me, and asked him if he’d be disappointed if we scraped the plan and started over. He looked at me like I was crazy.
The wedding, after all, was supposedly my dream. Except it wasn’t really. He is my dream. I didn’t want or need all the rigamarole. “I’m thinking Big Sur,” I said. “We can get married in the woods. No one around except the kids, our parents, and our best friends.” He reached for my hand. It engulfed mine. He had a way of making me feel safer than any man I’d ever known. His fingers intertwined with mine.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. I’m tired. We’ve got a big year ahead. There’s too much going on. The only thing that matters is you, me, and the kids. We don’t need the big to-do. We could always have a reception later when we get through the crazy. What do you say?”
“What about a honeymoon?” he asked.
“We can stay a few days by ourselves at Deetjen’s or something. Our parents can hang out with the kids. Then we can take the whole fam damily camping in Mendocino – somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”
“How long have you been thinking about this?” he asked.
“A few weeks. I think it’s why I still haven’t found a dress. I don’t want to wear a real wedding dress. This is about you and me – and our kids. I don’t need all that extra stuff. So, let’s just make it about us.”
“I’m game. All I care about is being your husband as soon as possible. Let’s do it.”
And just like that we booked Castro Cabin at Deetjen’s and got rooms for our kids and parents at a bed and breakfast in Monterey. We paid for a special use permit for our wedding in the redwoods. And after months of being exceptionally underwhelmed by white wedding dresses, I found a tea-length dress embroidered by women from the Otomi tribe in Mexico. The dress was vibrant, its brightly colored embroidery made my heart happy. It is perfect. Tonight, the family and our best friends will gather at the restaurant at Deetjen’s for dinner. Tomorrow, I will become Jay’s wife. It’s all that really matters anymore. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted.
***
On a path under towering redwood trees, with ivy and fern under the trees – surrounded by the quiet of the forest on a late spring morning, I married my best friend and love, the man I’d waited for, for more of my life than we’d had together. We said our vows while our favorite musician played his guitar. The fifteen people we love the most stood nearby. When you strip everything away, they’re the only thing that matters. Jay and the kids are all that matters. And now they are mine for however long I have left on this earth.
***
Gathered on the patio at Nepenthe, our family sits along the stone wall that looks down on the Pacific Ocean. When we arrived in town and throughout this morning, the ocean was blanketed by fog and clouds. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of water visible all day. Though looking down on the fog is its own kind of beauty, I was ecstatic when we walked the long steps to the restaurant and the teal green of the Pacific met us instead of fog. After everyone was seated and the warmth of chiminea stove kept the chill of the setting sun at bay, Jay stood up and with a clink of his glass got everyone’s attention. “The day I met Ruthie, I told Ty that I would marry her someday. And here we are two years later. Besides the kids, Ruthie is the greatest thing to happen to me. The last few months haven’t been easy, as you guys know. After Ruthie’s diagnosis, I came home one night, and she was pretty sick.”
I didn’t know he was doing this. Tears instantly rise in my eyes. I know exactly the night he’s talking about. It was the night I knew I was finally home – I was finally safe. He continues, “The chemo had been a lot that week. I got stuck in the city for a late meeting and Jane brought her home and stayed until the last second to still catch the train. I got in about an hour later. But not soon enough. Ruthie was in pretty bad shape. I felt horrible that she was there alone and that work had kept me away. She doesn’t know I was going to tell this story, but I feel it’s necessary.” With his champagne glass in his left hand, he placed his right hand on my back and rubs it just slightly.
“I love you,” I say, before he continues.
“I love you, too. But let me finish before I start crying.” Everyone, including our server, laughs. “So, there my beautiful fiancée is – laying on the floor of our bedroom. She’d gotten up to get something to drink and fainted. She’d gotten sick and was too weak to reach for the bucket. I picked her up, took her to the bathroom, and got her cleaned up and dressed for bed in her comfiest jammies.” Now I’m crying, crying. I wipe the tears from my eyes with a napkin and the server steps in handing me another napkin from the table next to us. It’s now I realize that though the restaurant isn’t crowded, we have an audience. “I crawled into bed next to Ruthie and felt horrible that she’d been through that alone and I knew then I’d take some time off work. But the real reason I’m telling this story is that when I told Ruthie that was the plan she said-”
I jump in and interrupt, “I said, I’m a mess. Save yourself now and find you a woman that doesn’t puke all over herself on the floor of the bedroom. You guys, it was gross. Like gross, gross,” I say. As I’d hoped, our family and friends laugh.
“Anyway. She is and always be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Look at her,” he says. “Besides being gorgeous, she loves me and the girls, takes care of us, while raising an awesome son, and doesn’t miss a beat keeping us all together. I idolize her. I don’t know how she does it all. Besides all that she is loyal, hilarious, and kind. I adore her.” Our friends ‘aww’ and now I’m really embarrassed. But leave it to Jay to make me feel like a million bucks while I’m losing my hair and planning my exit in every room, in case I have to puke. “So, there she is laying next to me and I am looking at her wishing I could relieve all her pain but still amazed that the day before she’d been at the kid’s school helping with an event and then showing up at soccer like she didn’t have to get up the next day and get her body pumped full of poison. Her hair curls when it’s wet and I didn’t take time to blow dry it. It was curling around her face in this perfect way and all I could think about was how lucky I was to have found her. Do you know what she says to me?”
I can’t believe he’s telling this story. “I was a mess, you have to admit,” I say.
He continues, “She says, and I quote, ‘I think we should delay the wedding. I don’t want you feeling stuck with this mess. If I make it through treatment – maybe then. I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay. Me and Lucas can move in with my parents and then if I get out of this, we can discuss the future then.”
My mom, sitting next to me, reaches for my hand and squeezes it. She didn’t know until now that after she left to catch the train, I’d fainted. “There’s clearly no chance that would happen,” Jay says. “Which is what I said. I also said she was stuck with me, and this was a ‘in sickness and health’ situation for both of us. I knew what I had laying there beside me. Ruthie would be my champion if the diagnosis had been mine. So, all that to say that the moment you realize you’ve found your forever, you don’t let her get away, under any circumstances. I will love you for the rest of my life. Thank you for being my best friend and truest companion.” The restaurant patio erupts in applause and I’m so touched by the response. I stand up and steady myself with my chair, as I reach for Jay. He takes me in his arms. There is nothing I could possibly say in response to top this. He whispers in my ear, “I love you, sweetness.”
“I love you, too. Thank you for being the safest place I’ve ever known,” I say, as he kisses me. The thing about finding your person is that sometimes when you’ve been hurt a lot, it’s hard to trust you’re finally safe. Even more so when your body is literally wasting away, destroying itself from the inside, out. But Jay just keeps showing up. I will love him for the rest of my life.
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