Chapter 24: Lori's Story

Arthea and I met on a Sunday. I was meeting my parents for lunch after church and she was dining with her family at the same place. We were both twenty-two and had graduated from the same college earlier that month. However, we'd never met.

Arthea was coming out of the ladies room, rummaging through her handbag when she crashed into me as I was talking on the payphone in the alcove.

She looked mortified. I quickly assured her it was okay. Her smile overwhelmed me and I knew I couldn't let her get away without getting her phone number. I suggested we meet for dessert that evening at the mall. She agreed.

I knew right then she was going to be my wife.

When I returned to my parents' table, I told my father to look slowly over his left shoulder at the beautiful girl who was just sitting down with her folks. I told Mom and him that she was the girl I was going to marry.

My mother got all excited and was ready to introduce herself. I grabbed her wrist and explained that I didn't know her yet but was going to meet her later that evening.

My dad slapped my arm and said, "Go get 'em, Tiger. I want an invitation to that wedding. You hear?"

Mom seemed bewildered. I told her to accept it. I was marrying that woman, and that was that.

She wanted to know the girl's name so she would know what to call her future daughter-in-law.

I hadn't asked her name. How dumb was that? She didn't ask me, either.

Our date was wonderful. We couldn't stop talking.

We dated for two years and then married after we agreed we couldn't live without one another for a single minute longer. It wasn't that we ran off and eloped; we told our parents of our decision. We didn't want to wait until we had enough money for a wedding.

Arthea's parents, particularly her mom, were annoyed. Mother thought her baby needed an engagement party, church wedding, elaborate honeymoon, etc. We wanted a simple church wedding in the mountains with just our parents and siblings. A romantic get-a-way type honeymoon was our style. And we planned on a long, life full of love, children, happiness and old age together.

In the end we got what we wanted. Arthea and I were married in a little chapel on the side of a mountain in Tennessee. Her mom sent out announcements and threw a big party for us after the honeymoon.

Arthea looked like an angel in her wedding dress and again in her going away outfit. My father stood up for us, and Arthea's sister was her maid of honor. The sisters and brothers booked a banquet room for our reception at the mountaintop lodge, accessible only by cable car. We all rode up together.

Our wedding was romantic, beautiful, loving and quietly classy. Our reception spilled out to the main dining room when their orchestra began to play. We danced, laughed, told stories and dreamed of forever that night.

Arthea and I spent our honeymoon planning — our careers, our children's births, our first home and then the second and third ones. We planned to live forever in love with each other and life.

Forever lasted about four and half years. One morning Arthea woke up feeling feverish and noticed a swelling under her arm that continued under her breast. She was sure it wasn't there the night before. Her doctor and sent her to a specialist in Orlando, who ordered several tests. We waited together for the results, both of us afraid to hear the news.

The doctor was young and efficient, but not particularly empathetic. She informed us Arthea had an aggressive strain of breast cancer. Her chances of making full recovery were very slight; she should get her affairs in order quickly. They would try some new, experimental chemotherapy on the off chance it could help. But the doctor felt it was not likely Arthea would see Christmas.

Just like that, our world fell apart. We were so deeply in love that it never once occurred to either of us that we wouldn't grow old and die together in a nursing home. Now we knew what it felt like to be told your hopes and dreams were ending and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I was too stunned to cry. Arthea cried enough for both of us and then never cried in front of me again.

We held each other tightly as we walked to the car. She looked at me through her tears and said, "I know I could never live without you, but what will you do without me?"

We hugged, kissed and held each other a long time before I closed her door and drove us home.

The doctor gave her about ten months, but God took her home in six. We buried her on a Saturday morning in August. The clouds that covered the world covered my heart, and I didn't think I would ever see the sun again.