After the Wedding: Treatment and Real Love
The weeks after the wedding blurred into a new kind of routine.
Instead of unwrapping wedding gifts and going on a honeymoon, we had infusion schedules and blood work.
I learned how to read lab results well enough to know when to push the nurse for more information.
I kept a folder with every printout carefully hole-punched, because organizing paperwork felt like something I could control.
Jake lost weight and then some of his hair, even though he’d gotten ahead of it, and there were days he couldn’t keep more than crackers down.
There were also days when he made terrible jokes in the chemo chair and flirted with the elderly volunteer who brought us blankets.
“If charm could cure cancer, you’d be in remission already,” I told him once.
He smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
At night, we danced in our living room. Just us, his arms around me. And then he’d drop his brave face, and his voice would shake as he reminded me again, “I’m yours, no matter what.”
And after years of hanging onto the pain of my ex, I finally got it: love isn’t about perfect timing or forever. It’s choosing each other, completely, in every moment.
