Week One: Sunday, September 1, 2013

Cutting the cake

Quite the week, it’s been, as we decided to get legally married to mark our 20^th anniversary together. 

For me, the precipitating event was filling out the Pharmacare form to register for the chemo drugs: In ticking off the ‘marital status’ box, I thought to myself: “Gee, it’s too bad I can’t tick off ‘married’.” I’ve never thought that before, but the recurrence of Val’s cancer is certainly a compelling reason to have such a thought, I believe.

That evening, the Monday of the meeting with the oncologist, I said to Val that we should get married. Our friend Jacki was there and she said, “Is that a proposal?” and I said yes and then Val said yes. But it took our friend Yvonne the following evening to really convince us that we should do it; she did so by pulling out a notebook and beginning to plan how we could make it happen.

With her help and skill, we pulled together a small gathering of friends on Saturday, August 31^st, at our house, with our friend Randa officiating as the marriage commissioner. It was a lovely event, and we’re only sorry we had to keep it so small, but that’s what the circumstances called for.

Now, with rings on our fingers, we are looking ahead to Val’s first session of chemotherapy this coming Wednesday. We are both anxious, of course, and are now getting serious about making lists of friends whom we’ll ask to help us out with driving and feeding and general daily tasks.

Thanks for being with us as this process unwinds...